The fight against organized crime in Greece has moved underground, into a world of assumed identities and silent bargains, where the police protect those who risk everything to expose what lies beneath.
It is within this clandestine landscape that the Hellenic Police, known as EL.AS., now shelters 61 individuals whose testimonies are vital to 57 active investigations spanning homicides, narcotics, and corruption. In some cases, the state even pays for their daily living expenses, such as rent, food, or relocation, because their cooperation places them in serious danger. Around 15 of these cases are considered particularly sensitive, with credible threats against the informants’ lives.
Training the watchers
In the coming days, according to police sources who talked to To Vima, authorities plan to launch an ambitious, albeit complicated, new strategy combining undercover operations and intelligence gathering under the country’s Directorate for Combating Organized Crime (DAOE), often referred as the “Greek FBI.”
As part of this plan, roughly 15 officers will undergo specialized training to prepare them for long-term undercover assignments. They are expected to learn how to convincingly assume everyday professions, such as waiters, sailors, office clerks, or freelance collectors, and to sustain these identities over time. Once deployed, they will be required to sever visible ties with the police and fully inhabit their cover roles, blending into the environments they are meant to observe.
In parallel, the Hellenic Police, working alongside the Ministry of Justice, will establish a network of shell companies: legitimate-looking firms designed to lure criminal groups engaged in fraud, money laundering, or illicit trade. These entities will act as traps, gathering intelligence and disrupting networks from within.
Shadows, informants, and the price of cooperation
These operations will be reinforced by a new legal framework that makes it easier for members of criminal organizations to become informants in exchange for leniency. Until recently, such provisions applied mainly to narcotics cases. Under the revised law, however, they extend to nearly all serious crimes, signaling a broader shift in Greece’s approach to dismantling organized crime.
This strategy builds on past successes. In previous years, undercover police infiltrated drug cartels and, more recently, a corruption network in Chania, Crete, by posing as bar and café employees. These assignments allowed investigators to collect evidence against local gang members without raising suspicion.
Prosecutor Dimitris Gyzis, who oversees the Directorate for Combating Organized Crime, recently explained in a published article that the new system will allow individuals to submit information through a secure, legally sanctioned process. Under this procedure, the identity of anyone providing critical intelligence remains undisclosed, even to most investigators. The prosecutor receives only the report of the alleged crime, not the source’s name.
Depending on the level of their cooperation, informants may receive reduced sentences, suspended penalties, or early release. Foreign nationals facing deportation who expose criminal activity can have their removal postponed and obtain temporary residency permits in Greece.
Lives under protection
Beyond the informant system, the Hellenic Police’s witness-protection program has become a crucial shield for those whose testimony could dismantle dangerous networks. Managed by the Intelligence and Special Operations Subdivision, it not only supervises protected witnesses but also oversees technical surveillance, special investigative missions, and tactical units such as the Crime Prevention and Suppression Teams (OPKE).
Fifteen officers maintain daily communication with protected witnesses to monitor threats or emergencies. When there are signs of danger, such as suspicious vehicles, unknown individuals near homes, or intimidation attempts, dozens of additional officers can be deployed within hours. The addresses of these specially protected individuals appear on the same confidential list of hundreds of monitored “targets”—which also includes politicians, diplomats, and other high-profile figures—but without any indication of who they are or why they are being protected.
The 61 protected witnesses come from varied backgrounds: some are tied to homicide cases, others to narcotics or armed-robbery networks, antiquities-smuggling rings, and violent football hooligan groups. Among them are four or five police officers who became key witnesses in organized-crime investigations and now face potential retaliation. Several protected individuals are foreign nationals.
Police sources told To Vima that, in this moment, none of the protected witnesses are linked to major financial scandals, unlike in the past, when the controversial Novartis witnesses were placed in the program. It is worth noting that during that period, a case file was opened against EL.AS. officers involved in the witness-protection supervision system, on suspicion of mismanaging program funds and engaging in under-the-table transactions with some of the individuals under protection.
A fragile balance between secrecy and survival
Today, most protected witnesses receive modest financial support to cover basic needs, but few opt for full identity changes or relocation abroad. Many prefer to stay near family, even at personal risk.
One rarely discussed element of the system is a safe apartment maintained by Hellenic Police in Athens, a fully furnished residence reserved for high-risk witnesses under 24-hour police supervision. Known informally among officers as “the El.AS. Airbnb,” its location remains a closely guarded secret. At present, the apartment sits empty.
Police officials are also evaluating a new mobile-app system modeled on the “panic button” used in domestic-violence cases. The app would allow witnesses under protection to instantly alert law enforcement in case of perceived threats, triggering an immediate security response.
