369kg heroin smuggling case involving retired Greek police officer revisited

The Athens Court of Appeal has reviewed sentences in a case involving the smuggling of 369 kilograms of heroin, which was brought from neighboring Italy in April 2015 inside a truck loaded with pipes for ships.

369 kg of heroin were found by the Greek police in a truck traveling from Patras through Italy to the Belgian city of Antwerp. The criminal organization was led by a retired policeman. Drugs were found among metal pipes during a customs inspection of a truck in the port of Patras on April 9, 2015. The X-ray machine, which was used to illuminate the checked truck, helped to find a cache with 340 packages of drugs with a total weight of 369.2 kg.

According to the authorities, its price at that time on the wholesale market was about 7,350,000 euros, and at retail – 40,000,000 euros!

The peculiarity of the case is that a retired colonel of the Greek police, who during his career managed to serve in several key services, played a key role in the criminal organization. But it seems that life had other plans for the 60-year-old officer, because before the end of his case in court, he died. Of course, he was not the only defendant who did not live to see the verdict. A Serb, a truck driver, also “died” unexpectedly.

A Turkish citizen, the second leader of a criminal organization and a partner of a former police officer, as well as a second driver of Serbian origin, ended up in the dock. The Turk was sentenced to ten years in prison, with extenuating circumstances. A retired policeman and a Serbian driver were each given 15 years, with one extenuating circumstance, while the second driver, a Serb, the only survivor despite his minor role in the organization, was given a life sentence.

The defenders of the Turk, criminal lawyers Ioannis Glikas and Constantina Petropulu, in an interview with journalists zougla.gr, said that “the recognition of two mitigating circumstances for our client was a reward for his behavior! The only certainty is that he was not the owner and custodian drugs, and that his participation was to be limited to the role of a mere accomplice.”

This is the largest consignment of hard drugs confiscated by the Greek police in recent years. The police believe that this amount of heroin can be estimated at about 7.3 million euros in the wholesale market and 40 million euros at retail prices.

The increased attention to the truck was the result of an operation carried out by the Hellenic Police Narcotics Unit and the DEA Unit of the US Embassy in Greece.

Led a criminal organization … a former policeman. In addition to the drivers, the head of the criminal organization, a former senior officer of the Greek police, as well as a Turkish citizen, were arrested. After many days of monitoring the members of the group, the police managed to carry out almost simultaneous operations in the city of Patras, in the Athenian districts of Peristeri, Alimos, Thrakomakedonis, Aspropyrgo. Three members of the group were detained and the cargo was confiscated. During a search in the houses of the arrested and special apartments, which play the role of warehouses, weapons, ammunition, 20,000 euros and 12,000 US dollars, several mobile phones were found and confiscated.

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