Police investigating murder journalist Giorgos Karaivaz on April 9 near his house in Athens, believes that it is associated with a series of unsolved murders dating back to 2017 and a war for zones of influence between organized crime groups.
An experienced crime reporter, Karaivaz had personal and professional connections in the Greek underworld and among the corrupt police officers associated with it. He has written extensively about this on his blog Bloko, where he recently admitted to receiving threats.
The 52-year-old journalist was also a key witness during the 2015-2017 National Intelligence Service investigation into cases of police corruption and racketeers related to prostitution and gambling.
Two suspects associated with these cases, both known to the journalist, were killed in 2019 and 2020. One of the suspected police officers was shot dead in 2018. Karaivaz was also a witness in an ongoing organized crime case.
The well-known Greek journalist Georgios Karaivaz was shot dead on 9 April 2021 by two unknown assailants near his home in the center of the Alimos district, in southern Athens.
A well-known and respected journalist, seriously involved in crime and with many investigations of his own, returned home after finishing work on a daily TV show, in which he worked on the Greek TV channel STAR. Two people drove up to him on a small motorcycle while he was getting out of the car. The examination showed that the journalist received 10 bullets – 6 in the chest, 2 in the head, 1 in the neck and 1 in the palm. Having made a control shot to the head, the criminals fled.
The data obtained by EL.AS employees indicate that the crime was ordered and carefully planned – the journalist’s routes of movement and his daily work schedule, as well as the escape route, which would allow the murderers to quickly escape from the crime scene, were studied. Presumably, the criminals who shot Giorgi Karaivaz moved along Granikou Street, and then along Papandreou Street went to Ano Kalamaki. During the retreat, the killers changed their scooter for another vehicle, after which their tracks were completely lost.
The police are investigating the likelihood that the criminals are contract killers who came to the country from abroad with the specific task of killing a journalist. Moreover, as a source of EL.AS. reported CNN Greece, the contractors may not even know the name of the victim, executing the order “blindly”.
Karaivaz was the main crime reporter for the leading Greek TV station Ant1 for ten years, and then opened his own crime news site and switched to Star in 2017. In the course of the investigation, the journalist’s computer and telephone number and his publications on his website bloko.gr are carefully studied.
More Stories
Kos: “He was playing with his brother and hit himself, so he had bruises,” says the grandmother of the deceased baby
A 58-year-old TV presenter was arrested in Thessaloniki for extortion.
50 employees of the Ministry of Transport are under investigation for bribes when issuing driver’s licenses