A suspected hitman smuggled into Greece by a Turkish crime syndicate to carry out a €19,000 contract killing has been arrested in Athens, exposing a sophisticated cross-border assassination network operating in the heart of the capital.
Greek police's Homicide Department apprehended the 28-year-old suspect in connection with the June 13 execution of a fellow Turkish national in the Exarcheia neighbourhood — a killing investigators say was ordered by the notorious "Daltonlar" organised crime syndicate.
Security camera footage captured the gunman roughly an hour before the murder, dressed in black with his face obscured by a hat and wired earbuds in — which investigators believe were used to receive live GPS directions from handlers.
The gang had supplied him with a weapon, photographs of his target and extensive logistical support.
Shortly after 9pm, he located his 25-year-old target sitting on the steps of Kallidromiou Street and shot him dead.
The hitman then retreated to one of several Airbnb apartments the network had pre-rented in Exarcheia, where he shed his operational clothing and disposed of the weapon before slipping to a secondary safe house in the Kallithea district.
An accomplice returned to the Exarcheia flat to sanitise the scene and destroy forensic evidence. It was not enough. Investigators tracked the suspect through painstaking CCTV analysis and intelligence work, and he was taken into custody.
Greek police say the investigation into the broader network — and its reach inside the country — is continuing.