Robberies, burglaries, distinguished thefts and drug trafficking were the areas of action of those arrested.
Today, 14 people were brought to trial, of which 13 were deemed temporary detainees after the agreement of the investigator and the prosecutor. The 14th defendant was released with restrictive conditions as he was a minor at the time of the acts.
Another 19 defendants have already been provisionally detained, six last Thursday and thirteen more yesterday Friday.
According to the police, those involved in gangs operating in groups committed 553 criminal acts between July 2020 and May 2024. Their “loot” is estimated to exceed 2.76 million euros. The case file, which has more than 20,000 pages, includes a total of 132 people, of which 21 are locked up in prisons.
ET revelation: The shocking dialogues of the members of the 14 gangs that ransacked Thessaloniki
-“Do you know what I want tomorrow?”
-“What;”
-“…let’s go tear down all the houses.”
-“Where you want…”
The above dialogue was recorded by the officers of the Crimes Against Life and Property Prosecution Sub-Directorate of the Security Directorate Thessalonikiwho had been monitoring the movements of the experienced burglars who had swept through Central Macedonia for a long time. The so-called… “priests” of the burglaries were responsible for some of the most cinematic heists recorded in the last 4 years in Northern Greece. “Free Press” presents the conversations of the thugs and the passwords they used to avoid being noticed by the authorities. The total of 14 gangs are responsible for 553 criminal acts, while the financial benefit from their illegal activity is estimated to exceed 2,760,000 euros.
Organization
“Look what’s going on, festive things, who’s celebrating… Put exact dates on where to go, where not to go, wake up. Become a map,” a gang member tells an accomplice during a conversation. As depicted, the burglars, who usually targeted homes inhabited by people of high economic and social status, always did their “study”, examining when the target homes were empty. In another part of the same conversation, the two burglars mention that apart from houses they also had a preference for cars:
MEMBER A: Are we going to steal?
MEMBER B: Let’s go to a house at night… I’m not going for cars again.
MEMBER A: Yes?
MEMBER B: Yes. Let’s get money.
MEMBER A: Hey, come on.
Observations
“If he has something, we come, if he doesn’t have something, why should we come?”, says one of the burglars in another conversation, with his accomplice answering him: “He has two who have money. But one wants tracking, they want tracking basically. When they close, let’s follow them.” It is indicative that in just one of the strikes, the criminals, about 4 years ago, had extracted 1 million euros from a residence in Panorama.
The members of the criminal groups used radios through which they tried, by entering the frequencies of the EL.AS., to monitor the movements of the police officers near the points of interest. The following dialogue is typical:
MEMBER A: Listen, here to the rich. He’s got two bags and I can’t take them and he’s got the Police, man. I don’t know what happened. Listen to Panorama.
MEMBER B: And how will I hear? I wonder if there are police there?
MEMBER A: He has the Police. I mean I don’t know what they do there.
MEMBER B: I’m listening, because I’m leaving in five minutes, you know.
He was giving… a report
Among the recorded conversations that led to the dismantling of the 14 gangs there is even a dialogue of one of the members of the criminal groups with his wife, in which he describes his illegal activity.
HUSBAND: Tell me, how much did you get yesterday?
BURGLAR: We took thirty euros yesterday. We didn’t get much, to die for.
HUSBAND: Yes?
BURGLAR: Yes.
HUSBAND: I thought you got a lot too, coming like this.
BURGLAR: No.
Cell phone business in prisons
Among the hundreds of illegal actions in which the 37 arrested were involved was the introduction of mobile phones into the Thessaloniki detention center. On three occasions, identified gang members threw improvised packages containing mobile phones and phone connections into the prison yard, following a tip from an incarcerated burglar. In another case, in Nigrita prisons, five criminals who were serving sentences for their illegal activity were found with mobile phones, which were passed to the detention center by a social worker in consultation with other members of the criminal organization.
“Beats” in hospitals as well
Criminals, looking for ways to make an easy profit, did not hesitate to carry out their illegal activity even in hospital parking lots. There they thought they would find easy targets, taking advantage of the panic of several citizens who, in their haste to get to the hospitals, left objects in their cars. In fact, they reached the point of being informed by the EKAV telephone center (166), looking for the hospitals of Thessaloniki that were on call, wanting in this way to locate more target vehicles.
#prison #participation #criminal #gangs
