An unprecedented gaffe. An armed robber managed to escape arrest hiding for fourteen hours in a closet of the victim’s apartment, despite the police presence and investigation.
Four armed robbers broke-in on the apartment of an elderly woman in Palio Faliro suburb of south Athens on Monday morning.
They entered the apartment on the eighth floor, tied up the 64-year-old elderly woman and the maid and started to pillage the flat.
However, they were spotted by the woman’s son who lives in the floor above and had installed surveillance cameras in his mother’s flat. The son called the police.
When police arrived, three of the robbers ran away, media reported that they jumped form apartment to apartment. Later media reported that one of the robbers was hiding in the bath tab.
One of them died after he fell from a balcony at the seventh floor of the building during the chase.
Video: the balcony from which one of the robbers jumped
Two were arrested.
Police launched a manhunt for the fourth robber.
Some 20 policemen and crime officers conducted an hours long investigation in the apartment. They even took fingerprints from the closet where the fourth robber was hiding. However, they apparently did not open the door to take a look inside.
When police left and the elderly woman was allowed to return to her apartment again on Monday night, her son who discovered the robber.
Hiding in the closet for fourteen hours, the robber felt at some point the need to use it as a water closet.
The son smelled something foul, opened the closet door and saw the robber sitting in his own feces.
The robber jumped out, threatened the son with a gun and fled. He was wearing a mask.
The son called again the police that set police dogs to trace the robber. In vain.
Police seeks to identify the robber through his fingerprints and the ‘rich’ DNA material he left behind.
According to media, the three robbers were convicts recently released from prison. The one who died was a 47-year-old Moldavian national, convicted in 2006 for double manslaughter and armed robberies. he was released in 2016. The arrested robbers are a Russian, 40, and an Armenian, 35.
The Russian is said to be member of the Russian mafia in Greece. He was released in 2015 after serving a prison term for dozens of robberies.
Now Greek police is investigating how the robber managed to hide literally under the nose of police and crime officers.
Police investigation continues in the neighborhood also on Tuesday.
sources: here and others
