Colombian drug cartel seen behind 2017 murder of Belgian in Athens

The murder of 56-year-old Belgian Luigi Vancheri in the Athens neighborhood of Neos Cosmos in 2017 remained an unsolved mystery until criminal investigators were able to access the contents of his mobile phone.

Text messages saved on the device exposed the motives and identity of the perpetrators. One of these, a 32-year-old Albanian national, was arrested in Epirus at the Kakavia border crossing with Albania at the beginning of February and was expected to appear before a prosecutor on Wednesday.

Two of his accomplices, who go by the names Tony and Vinny, are still elusive. They are charged with killing Vancheri by shooting him in the head on the orders of a Colombian cartel.

The victim is said to have owed an unidentified sum of money to the cartel.

The assassination took place on the night of June 16, 2017 on Fanosthenous, a pedestrianized...