Seven suspects, all Turkish nationals, have been arrested for a gangland-style attack last December in an upscale southeast Athens district that left one man dead and another injured.
The arrests come in light of several deadly incidents in Greece with victims and perpetrators belonging to Turkey-based crime gangs. In some instances, the gang members are Kurds. In one instance, five men were shot dead in a car outside Athens.
The suspects in the Dec. 9, 2024 attack, which occurred on a busy street in Glyfada in broad daylight, have been arrested at different times, with the seventh man apprehended just last week. Another suspect in the same incident is incarcerated in Turkey, while an arrest warrant has been issued for a ninth man.
The growing presence of Turkish crime gangs in Greece, as well as in other parts of Europe, is attributed to a crackdown in neighboring Turkey, “settling of scores” within Turkey and what’s perceived as a “friendlier” ground from where to engage in drug and migrant trafficking, two of the preferred “trades” of organized crime in the neighboring country.
Last week witnessed another such incident, when a gunman exited a vehicle outside a northern Greece gas station and started firing at a car carrying Greek intelligence officers trailing the first. No one was injured in that shooting incident.
Three Turkish nationals were arrested within days in relation to the shooting, two in extreme southeast Bulgaria, and the alleged shooter in a shack located in a remote Rhodopi prefecture village in northeast Greece.
Greek authorities have recently focused on the growing presence of Turkish underworld figures in the country, with some estimates pointing to around 300 such individuals. In some cases, criminal elements enter and reside in the country legally with temporary visas, in other case they cross into Greece illegally and either request political asylum or remain “off the grid”.
