Two brothers in Crete ran a money laundering operation worth hundreds of thousands of euros from profits made through drug trafficking, weapons dealing, and extortion. The two, along with 46 other individuals, including a police officer, a Navy official, and an Air Force official, trafficked significant quantities of cocaine and cannabis, laundering their profits through tourism and hotel businesses owned by the masterminds and their associates. The criminal organization began to unravel after a bombing attack targeting a narcotics police officer. The officer had arrested a gang member, and the bomb placed at his house in Chania was characterized as retaliation. However, as it turned out, this was the move that led to a thorough investigation of the gang’s activities and ultimately to dismantling it.
Yesterday, Sunday, at dawn, dozens of police officers from various elite services in Crete, with the presence of 8 judicial officials, conducted raids on the suspects’ homes. This was preceded by years of mapping their movements. The defendants’ activities had been uncovered, conversations between gang members were recorded, and their methods of operation as well as the vehicles they used had been identified. During the raids, police found pistols of various calibers, military weapons including Kalashnikov-type rifles, ammunition, drugs, cocaine and hashish, notes, computers, mobile phones, and numerous other incriminating evidence.
According to journalistic sources, the gang was known throughout Crete. They had acquired, under circumstances being investigated, hotel units, tourism businesses, and beach bars where they laundered dirty money from illegal transactions. The “clean” money ended up completely legally in the perpetrators’ accounts, who lived lavishly. The houses of the two brothers who are believed to be the masterminds of the network are extremely expensive and are no different from the homes of major entrepreneurs. The same applies to their cars, worth hundreds of thousands of euros.
Crete: The accomplices of the “masterminds”
The active-duty police officer provided information to the network about potential investigations against them, license plate checks, and other information they might need about people they wanted to extort. The Navy and Air Force officials represent a completely different case as they owed money to the gang, possibly due to unpaid drug purchases, resulting in them becoming victims of extortion. They supplied the network with quantities of fuel stolen from their services’ tanks, while one was found to be trafficking drugs to pay off debts to the network. A police trainee’s involvement is also being investigated in the same case. Beyond the uniformed personnel, the other individuals who participated in the gang are of interest. Apart from restaurant professionals and other business owners from Chania and Rethymno, the gang included individuals with serious criminal backgrounds. Hardened criminals who had undertaken the “dirty work” – conducting extortion, beatings, arson, and even bombing attacks. An ongoing investigation is examining whether hardcore convicted criminals participated in the gang in one way or another.
The gang’s business operations
The masterminds of the gang, which appears to have operated for years on the island without any problems from authorities, had begun trying to acquire Church of Crete properties over the past 1.5 years, in addition to their hotel units, tourism businesses, and beach bars. Land transactions aimed at tourist exploitation put the gang into other types of “businesses,” with profits described as astronomical. Collaborating businesses issued fake receipts to legitimize black money from cocaine trafficking. Other police services have already become involved in the case to identify potential financial schemes set up by gang members to justify black money. The arrested individuals are expected to be brought today under heavy security measures to the competent prosecutor with the voluminous case file formed against them.
