Greek police and Europol announced the arrest of a 52-year-old businessman in Glyfada, a suburb of southern Athens. He is suspected of laundering money for an international drug gang.
A European arrest warrant was issued against a man of Albanian origin, who had a Greek name and a Greek passport. The text of the warrant states that it was issued in connection with the accusation of the suspect in the leadership of a criminal organization that collected large sums of money from the drug trade.
The businessman was discovered and arrested in an operation following months of cooperation between the Attica SDOE’s counternarcotics department and the relevant Dutch authorities on May 31 in the metropolitan area of Glyfada.
In a statement, Europol noted that the recent seizure of three encrypted communication tools used by criminals – Encrochat, Sky ECC and ANOM – showed the importance of these underground bankers and their criminal landscape.
The European Police Agency called the man “one of Europe’s biggest underground bankers.” He was wanted on a European arrest warrant as one of the leaders of a criminal organization involved in the collection and distribution of large sums of money received from the drug trade in the Netherlands.
The criminal organization moved large sums of drug money, estimated at 250 million euros, daily through the “underground” banking system using encrypted communications for about 10 months, Greek media reported.
During a search conducted at the place of residence of the arrested person, banknotes of various countries were found and seized, including euros, US dollars, Canadian dollars, Australian dollars, Swiss francs, Turkish liras, United Arab Emirates dirhams and South African rands.
Mobile phones were also confiscated, including those used for encrypted conversations through special applications, a tablet, a digital disk and SIM cards.
The operational management of SDOE Attica continues to cooperate with the relevant authorities of the Netherlands and with the competent judicial authorities of the country, since there are reasonable suspicions of money laundering from criminal activities in Greece.
To cover his activities, the arrested man opened a real estate business in the area, Greek media reported. According to some media reports, he is a banker for the Albanian drug mafia.
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