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The major police operation which began on Friday morning to trace and apprehend dangerous armed criminals who had shot at a police car involved in the blockade in Arta, fortunately without injuring anyone, is covering the area to the Greek-Albanian border in Thesprotia. The police believe that the perpetrators were two runaways from the prison in Trikala. It is not excluded that the shooter may be the well-known Albanian Mario Kola who is wanted.

The criminals were moving by agricultural vehicle NAVARA that they had stolen from Agrinio and later abandoned at the municipal school in Filipiada. Then they stole another car from Filipiada and headed to the village of Lakas in Souli where the area is inaccessible. After abandoning the car in Gliki, they stole a motorcycle from a resident of the area in order to escape.

The Greek police have blocked the area from the Acherontas river to the Greek-Albanian border in Thesprotia. Armed policemen are searching the area and a police helicopter is also involved in the operation.

In addition, vessels of the port police of Igoumenitsa are patrolling in the coastal area from Ammoudia, Preveza to Sagiada, Thesprotia to prevent a possible escape of the criminals to Albania by sea.

Lieutenant general of the Greek police Dimitris Tsaknakis who is responsible for northern Greece is in Epirus too. According to the police, the armed offenders who had fired at the police car in Arta were the two runaways from the prison in Trikala, Mario Kola and Ilir Koupa. Koupa’s fingerprint was found on 8 June in Panormo in Phocis where a Volvo car belonging to former Minister Apostolos Andreoulakos had been stolen.

According to police information, two of the other runaways from the prison in Trikala who have not yet been apprehended, namely Muratai Murataz and Klement, are already in Albania. They have on them 1 million euro which they had stolen after fleeing from the robbery of the branch of the National Bank of Greece in Larissa. Louli Flora and Sulla Fatos are two other criminals who have not been apprehended either. Sulla had previously lived in Corfu and was arrested for theft in Igoumenitsa.