A major police operation has been underway to bust criminal gangs set up by Turkish nationals in Athens and Thessaloniki. The operation follows the mafia-style shooting early Monday morning in Glyfada suburb of southern Athens that left behind two dead and one seriously injured.
In the police operation, eight people have been arrested so far, while another eight had been taken in for questioning.
Police has also seized 49 guns and quantities of drugs. The guns, Glock type were hidden in a suitcase in an apartment in the center of Athens, newspaper eleftherostypos.gr reported.
Glyfada shooting
Two of the total 7 to 8 attackers in Glyfada have been also arrested. They are Turkish nationals of Kurdish origin, aged 26 and 22 years old. They were taken to prosecutor on Tuesday and were charged with homicide.
According to media reports. the two confessed to the shooting saying that the victims were members of a gang with which their gang was at war as they had killed some of their members.
They knew that the victims had fled to Greece and moved also here with the aim to exterminate them.
Police is seeking more people involved in the shooting that took place in broad daylight, spreading panic among the residents on the streets and in the shops around Karaiskaki Square.
The killers were walking on the streets openly holding the guns and targeting their victims whom they located in a betting shop next to a kindergarten full with children.
The two victims, the seriously injured man and another person who coincidentally had not gone with them, belonged to the “Baygaralar”, one of the largest criminal networks in Turkey.
The perpetrators, members of a rival gang, were assigned to kill them, in retaliation for two murders of their own people in previous months in Turkey, as the two arrested told the police.
8 people acted in Glyfada, all of whom had weapons with them, some of which they brought from Turkey and others they bought in Greece.
They had arrived in the country gradually in previous months. The two arrested attackers had come last summer and November respectively. It is not clear whether the suspects entered the country legally or covered as irregular migrants of asylum seekers.
Police officers from the Crimes Against Life Department have identified 7 of the 8 perpetrators, while they are searching for six of them.
In a similar mafia-style shooting in Piraeus in last June, a 48-year-old dead and a 23-year-old injured were also members of the “Baygaralar” gang.
The criminal network is said to be involved in trafficking of migrants, drugs and weapons.
A 29-year-old man, known to be the leader of the “Bayaralar” gang, was arrested last May in Athens following cooperation between Greek and Turkish authorities.
pictures: via Greek Police
PS One leader dead or in prison does not eliminate powerful gangs…
