Galery

2

1

Picture – newspaper “Ethnicity”

Three men are dead and one is injured, over 200 armed robberies, 25 robberies of super markets, 28 bank robberies, 4 bombs exploded. This is not a scenario of a Hollywood action movie. It is the police report about Athens in the past two weeks. Each day banks, post offices, newspaper kiosks, lottery centers, gas stations, shops, private homes and even taverns are being robbed. Even the pedestrians have no break – only in the center of Athens for two weeks 50 citizens have become victims of assaults. Their money, jewelries, cellular phones have been stolen.

All of this adds to the 4 bomb explosions, one of which caused the death of a 15 years old boy from Afghanistan and over 30 car and motorcycle arsons of the citizens who didn’t expect anything. We are talking about Athens, the capital of a country – member of the European union, the euro zone and NATO. The police reports are talking about seven gangs, seven crime organizations who have separated the fields of action and are storming through the Greek capital.

the gang of the southern suburbs – they are breaking in luxury houses and are stealing cars and cash money;

couples of criminals with hoods – they break into houses in the southern suburbs, carrying guns and threaten the residents and steal everything they lay their eyes on;

the gang of the northern suburbs – they attack luxurious country houses and forcing safes;

the gang of the car stealers – they steal luxurious cars throughout the entire Athens, mostly in the late hours of the night when their owners are sleeping;

the gang with the Kalashnikov guns – they attack the taverns and the expensive restaurants in the northern suburbs Varibombi, Parnita and Porto Rafti and they steal the turnover from the cash registers and all the money they find with the clients in the restaurants;

bank robbers – they go in couples and triples and they attack “small” branches of banks;

jewelry stealers – dozens of owners of jewelry shops have lived through the horror of meeting them at least once.

Since the Good Monday on the streets of the big Greek cities the so called neighborhood policemen are circulating. The Greek ministry of civil defense hired 2426 policemen from the so called Delta squad whose main target is to handle the street crimes. After an analysis of the crime in the neighborhoods 167 squads have been appointed where an immediate intervention is required. In each police station there are 2 or 3 squads like this. The policemen are going around in couples on motorcycles and in case of a signal they group in two or three bikes in order to go to the crime scene. 2004 policemen are spread around Athens with 1002 motorcycles with 650 cubic meters engines. In Thessaloniki their number is 422. In the next weeks Delta squads will be created in other big cities as well.

The flying squad has already scored their first success in Athens after the arrest of three bank robbers and one blustering shooter, who was terrorizing the center of the Greek capital. Only three days after their appointment the policemen managed to capture the authors of the bank robbers in the Nea Eritreia and Alimos suburbs. At the same time the lust for blood and the cruelty of the criminals makes big impression. The top of the cruelty was the murder of a 60 years old officer from the reserve troops in his own home in a moment when on the territory of Athens only in 48 hours there were 26 robberies. In the same evening a bomb exploded in the hands of a 15 years old totter boy from Afghanistan and tore apart his body. On the next day in the Kato Patisia neighborhood criminals shot pointblank a 58 years old professor in mathematics in order to steal 300 euro from him. Later that day a foreigner, owner of a small store was shot twice in the shoulder and was sent to the hospital with his life in danger...

The last 24 hours were also very hard for the Greek police this time because of accidents related to the Easter fireworks. On the Santorini island one 20 years old boy died after an explosion in a fireworks warehouse. Another 20 years old boy and one more 29 years old man were injured from the explosion. In Mesinia a 25 years old young man was driving in a car fireworks which exploded in unknown circumstances and he died right away. In Argos a 16 years old boy lost the fingers on one of his hands after hand made firework blew up in his hands.