Massacre at Artemis six Albanians killed became a sad reminder that Greece is not a safe country, but has become the “Columbia” of Europe.
The fact that the numerous shootings are being justified as “settling scores” between criminal gangs does not mean anything good for the Greek citizen. This does not mean that “settling scores” does not concern him. This worries him even more since his own safety is at risk.
It is obvious that Greece has become the center of gangs in the Balkans, as the number of mafia murders is in the hundreds. Executions, bombs and attacks of all kinds became part of daily police reports. At the same time, it is estimated that more than 1.5 million illegal weapons are circulating in Greece, most of which come from neighboring Albania and the Caucasus countries.
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According to a previous police report, with regard to organized crime in Greece, the use of weapons and brutality by criminals was also used in cases where this was not common, such as migrant trafficking. As for the escalation of this violence, it can largely be explained favorable provisions of criminal law, because, as the report notes, many of those arrested for involvement in organized crime groups were people who had a history of being arrested for serious crimes, but were not sentenced to prison or were released from prison by taking advantage of loopholes provided by the laws, and in the case of foreigners they were never deported.
As for drug trafficking in Greece, it has acquired an international dimension, since Greece is not a heroin or cocaine producing country.
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One of the main factors that puts our country in the spotlight of the drug mafia is that it is located at the crossroads of three continents and automatically becomes the main route for drug trafficking through vast land and sea borders that are not controlled. At the same time, Greece is an international tourist destination during the summer season, which strengthens the domestic drug market.
The Albanian mafia plays a leading role in cannabis trafficking. Most of it is transported across the Greek-Albanian border and then to the rest of the country. Several Albanian criminal groups involved in cannabis trafficking involve Greeks, without leading members of these organizations being involved in the transport and therefore avoiding arrest. Members of the organization involved in illegal trafficking carry weapons, and when transporting all large shipments, there is a convoy to inform about any police checks.
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The world of organized crime in Greece has grown dramatically in recent years, with the number of contract killings and score settlings exceeding all-time highs.
Edition pronews quotes one of the representatives of the “people of the night,” as organized crime is called in Greece: “Now pistols are circulating like I don’t know what… Once upon a time, a contract killing cost more than 50,000 euros. Now they kill for 5,000 euros. Now you can easily find the scumbag and send him to do crazy things.”
According to him, there are no Greeks among this audience, because, as he explains, “no Greek will take the life of another person for 5,000 euros. Don’t listen to such things.” Explaining the strategy of organized crime, he says that in Attica in particular, “mafia leaders control different regions, and their groups are divided according to their activity.” “There is definitely always a boss. There are groups that are active in illegal shops. In bouzouki… There is the main boss of what is called the mafia, the police,” he says.
The money the mafia earns is laundered through legal and illegal businesses. However, even when the police are on their trail, the night barons get away with everything.
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“Big people fall into the hands of the police? Never. Why? Because not a single shopkeeper has a store in his own name, his own shop. It’s simple: money moves everything. Therefore, it is those who are in front who always fall into the hands of the authorities… So why does he care? He wants to collect twenty, thirty, fifty thousand every day. The figurehead will take what he agreed to,” says the “man of the night.”
As for the reasons leading to the settling of scores between the “godfathers”, he mentions the conflict between Greek and foreign gangs for control of territories.
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“They are going into other areas where they have no right to go. This is our land. No one can come and invade it.” When asked whether the wave of cold-blooded murders will end soon, he answers disarmingly: “Of course not. How will it end? Since you and I, let’s say, are friends, and then someone appears who kills you and hurts my soul. What will I do? Am I really going to let him walk past me and laugh?”
Edition Militant Wire also conducted research into the vast arsenal of weapons that are or have been in the hands of armed organizations, criminals or foreign criminals, on a topic that is relatively unknown in Europe. And the conclusions are quite disappointing for a supposedly “safe” country where possession of weapons is prohibitedwith rare exceptions, but in the end everyone who shouldn’t even have access to guns ends up getting one.
More specifically, the publication writes: “Greece provides an interesting (and perhaps understudied) case study for any security scholar. The early 19th-century armed struggle for independence against the Ottoman Empire not only inspired a number of similar nationalist uprisings, but also captivated intellectuals who already lived in “free” and often democratic Western countries.
Its geography is also interesting, as it consists of some of the most ungoverned areas, in this case mountains and an archipelago of individual island chains.
The presence of the islands makes it a natural target for a vast network of smuggling and organized crime, and its northern internal border runs through the territory of post-communist countries whose regimes collapsed in the 1990s and experienced large outflows of illegal and illicit weapons from arsenals that – in the case of Albania – were literally opened and looted by the civilian population.
The country is also located between South-East Europe, which experienced horrific violent conflict in the 1990s, North Africa and the Levant, much of which is either still experiencing some form of armed conflict or is recovering from revolutions and/or violent unrest of one kind or another. of a different kind.
Moreover, Greece itself has a rich domestic history of armed political violence and especially guerrilla activity, be it the bandits who dominated the northern mountain passes during the Ottoman era, or the guerrillas who fought fascist troops during World War II, the nationalist guerrillas who helped organize EOKA fight the British in Cyprus, the Marxist-Leninist urban guerrillas of the late 20th century, or their militant anarchist predecessors.
Two men arrested for an arsenal of weapons, fake documents and a police flasher
Added to all this is that for much of the 21st century, Greece seems to have been in a state of permanent unrest, and the Greek people have an amazing ability to mobilize each other into mass demonstrations in the streets, protesting for various reasons.
When it comes to the minority of Greeks and foreign nationals who are either part of serious organized crime networks or ideologically motivated individuals, the weapons they acquire in the country generally fall into consistent categories that can be predicted given Greece’s position on the map and the usual patterns of illegal/illegal arms trade in the region.
The weapons pictured were almost all seized by the Greek police and came from a variety of sources – from private individuals with a firearms hobby but without the proper licenses, to small-time drug dealers and some of Greece’s most notorious urban guerrillas.
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Many pistols come from the former Yugoslav Republics, a smaller number from Bulgaria, and it is very common to see weapons made and/or received from the former People’s Socialist Republic of Albania.
Along with these, there are weapons common throughout the rest of the world, such as the Glock semi-automatic weapons of various calibers, produced in Austria. Likewise, these arsenals include common shotguns, from break-action to mid-range pump-action and semi-automatic. “Sometimes these seizures include weapons made in neighboring Turkey, mostly 12-gauge AR shotguns.”
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