Pages

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Police Shed Light on ‘Greek Mafia’ Prison Operations

After the information provided by the cousin of Panagiotis Vlastos — mastermind of Greece’s largest criminal organization — police are trying to shed light on the modus operandi of the “Greek mafia.” “It is a labyrinthine mafia that in the past 30 years is changing faces, roles and positions, and we will need a long time to have a complete picture of the activities and sub-groups that make up this puzzle of criminality,” said a Hellenic Police officer who has knowledge of the investigations. The so-called Greek mafia has three times more members than those charged in recent documents. Their roles are changing constantly, while the three alleged leaders of the organized criminal group, divide responsibilities, integrate and withdraw partners, depending on the investigations by the Greek authorities. Vlastos, and the two other leaders of the criminal organization are imprisoned, but they still give orders and coordinate criminal activities from prison. Also, many individual offenders who are charged or suspected of criminal activities work for the “Greek mafia” simultaneously. Investigations show that every leader has his own gang, but at the same time each one of them can “lend” manpower to the other two leaders. Each gang has experts in criminal activities such as extortion, human trafficking, explosives or gun smuggling. These specialists can work for all three gang leaders if need be. Profits from the criminal activities are shared on the same table, depending on the heaviness of the name of the leader. The head — or “Il capo di tutti capi” as is the Italian mafia term — takes the lion’s share. As the recent investigations show, communication between members in or out of prison is done by letters in envelopes sealed with tape and signed. When they use mobile phones, they speak in code and the phones used are unidentified.


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT greece.greekreporter.com