Greece creates 'FBI-style' organised crime unit amid mob murder spree
Greece has created an "FBI-style" police unit to combat organised crime after a raft of gangland killings, its police minister said this week.
The "new service" was launched to fight activity including "organised crime, drugs, human trafficking, blackmail and smuggling", police minister Michalis Chrysochoidis told state radio Proto Programma on Tuesday.
"Greek society needs it to fight against a form of violence... that rakes huge economic sums", he said.
The new unit of about 1,000 officers -- dubbed "the Greek FBI" by Chrysochoidis in July -- has absorbed several directorates including the economic crimes, narcotics, human trafficking, hooliganism and organised crime squads.
In the past two years, several prominent mobsters have died in ongoing gang wars, with some of the killings in broad daylight.
In July, a topographer was shot dead in his car near a busy Athens street, with the murder attributed to real estate disputes on the glitzy island of Mykonos.
Last year, Greece's police were badly embarrassed when dozens of Dinamo Zagreb hooligans drove through the country unchallenged and clashed with AEK Athens fans in the capital, leaving one dead.
The killing remains unresolved, as is the murder of prominent crime reporter Giorgos Karaivaz outside his home in 2021.
Two men arrested for the murder were acquitted for lack of evidence in July.
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