At 64 the arrests with 165 defendants for the Lyggeridis murder

Mallios: “Investigations under extreme secrecy”

“In the last 4 months, the Sub-Directorate for Combating Violence in Sports Venues of the Attica Security Directorate, with the assistance of the Criminal Investigations Directorate, conducted an extensive investigation under the utmost secrecy to fully elucidate the criminal hooligan attack in the area of ​​Rentis, which resulted in the death of the YAT police officer Georgios Lyggeridis”, the Chief of the Greek Police, Dimitris Mallios, said in his statements.

“In order to solve this murderous attack from the first moment, more than 400 leads had been made, so that no conviction was lost, while one person had been arrested and brought to justice.”

Subsequently, the case file compiled included testimony, video and other findings that demonstrated the existence of a criminal organization behind the attack, while confirming a link between sports violence and organized crime.

In particular, evidence emerged of a criminal organization, consisting of 158 members, which, at least since 2019, committed felony and misdemeanor criminal acts and operated mainly in Attica, Volos and Ioannina.

The Chief of the Hellenic Police pointed out that in order to dismantle the criminal organization in question, from the early hours of this morning, as part of the ongoing preliminary investigation, a wide-ranging police operation was carried out, with the assistance of the E.K.A.M. and police dogs, resulting in the arrest of 64 people so far.

At the same time, 58 searches have been carried out in houses and 15 in vehicles and a number of persuasive items such as pistols, wooden bats, knives, drugs, clothing, digital media and others have been seized.

Our commitment to combating sports violence and overall lawlessness is absolute. We will continue to work with a plan and determination for the safety of citizens and peaceful coexistence in our society.”

The hierarchy of the criminal organization

From there, the “broom operation”, after a four-month investigation, culminated in the early hours of Monday with the dozens of arrests that turned into the arrests of suspects for participation in a criminal organization and complicity in incidents of sports violence.

According to information, this is a “weeding out” of the recruitment pool of criminal groups. This is a new case file concerning the moral complicity in the murder of the 31-year-old police officer Giorgos Lyggeridis in Rentis and the criminal organization involved in at least 10 and perhaps more incidents of violence and attacks in sports meetings.

According to police sources, most of the arrested are leading members of links, with some of them having participated in incidents even 15 years ago. The leaders, organizers, group leaders, transmitters of orders and actions, arms storekeepers and individuals who made up the strike groups have been arrested.