Twelve suspects, including six minors, were ordered to remain in custody after completing their testimonies in connection with a drug trafficking ring that distributed cannabis and cocaine, which authorities say had extended its operations even into school premises.
After a lengthy interrogation process that concluded in the early morning hours, the investigating magistrate and prosecutor decided to remand all defendants in custody. According to reports, those involved denied the charges against them, claiming in their testimonies that they were not selling drugs but were users themselves.
Harsh punishments from drug ring “masterminds”: They beat underage students and extinguished cigarettes on them
Shocking details are emerging about the activities of gang members who forced students to sell drugs even inside schools. When minors failed to comply with their demands, they faced punishment and torture. The scenes captured on video are shocking, showing one of the minors being beaten, forced to kneel, and compelled to smoke.
The ring’s “masterminds” were characterized as violent and ruthless. Typical are the conversations recorded by authorities:
– Leading member: Come on… why are you hanging up on me… don’t make me…
– Student: I did it by mistake.
– Leading member: Screw your house… Where are you?
– Student: School.
– Leader: “You idiot, I’ll screw up your house, idiot. Have I ever told you when… don’t…”
It should be noted that the minors were pushing cannabis and cocaine mainly in Nea Philadelphia, Nea Halkidona and Ano Patisia, while the leader and deputy leader would extinguish cigarettes on the minors’ bodies when they failed to follow discipline rules.
Other conversations record instructions for transactions and even threats from the leader toward a minor over money he allegedly owed them, threatening him with beatings.
– Leading member: Where are you?
– Student: School.
– Leading member: Fine, without much talk. Don’t bother me with “I have school, I have this, I have that.” Jump the fence, go get “a minute,” hurry up and bring them there to the square behind your father.
– Student: In how much time?
– Leading member: Maximum five minutes to be there, because if you’re not there in five minutes I swear you’ll get beaten up badly, bro.
Authorities raided homes and schools, finding quantities of cocaine and cannabis carefully hidden in containers, even in a wall cavity, precision scales, and numerous mobile phones.
It’s worth noting that authorities arrested 12 people, including six students.
“I had no idea,” says student’s mother
“I had no idea, I knew and thought he was working delivery. The police informed me and the only thing I had seen, I had noticed was some strange behavior. He reacted to any topic. There were some reactions in the child. I saw him tired the last month and with some marks. As time passed I saw him getting worse, I pressured him to talk to me but the truth is he wouldn’t talk to me, he wouldn’t say anything. Recently he started opening up and told me that every time he didn’t do exactly what they told him, then they would set him up below the house as soon as he returned from work,” says the mother of a 16-year-old to Live News.
She continues: “He told me there were three people and they were hitting him. One of them would even extinguish, the child told me, cigarettes on his back, leg and stomach and they would ask him ‘will you do it again?’ My nephew almost got involved too. The boy wanted to cover his expenses, the child wanted to cover his expenses because we couldn’t help him financially, and of course if I had known there would be this development, there was no way we would have ever left him like that. The beating my child took, these people who hit him should pay for it.”
