Extortion

A police officer who was arrested on Sunday on the island of Crete and accused of extortion, bribery of an employee and breach of duty was on Tuesday placed on administrative leave by decision of the Greek Police Headquarters.

The Attica Security Police Extortion Department on Thursday said it had cracked a case involving one of the largest known criminal organizations, following a two-year investigation. According to sources, up to 60 people have been identified as suspects.

The Association of Greek Archaeologists has said that one of its members who works on Mykonos received a threatening message with abusive content.

The archaeologist reported the threat, which came in the form of a text message from an unknown number, to a prosecutor that deals with extortion and to the police.

Members of the SBPOK and Police Administration in Novi Sad, in cooperation with the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, arrested members of the criminal group due suspicion that they committed extortion crime.

 Eleven people, aged between 25 and 52, have been arrested as members of a money laundering gang in the city of Kalamata in southern Greece, police said Wednesday. The arrests took place on Tuesday. 

Speculation that the outgoing head of the Special Prosecution may have been involved in an extortion scheme has dealt a huge blow to this once respected body - although some insist the affair at least shows no one is above the law.

Four officers from the 4th police department have been charged with taking part in a criminal group, influence peddling and fraud, the Ministry of Interior said. The group, made up of officers of the economic police unit, extorted money from retailers under the threat of police inspections and in exchange for warnings ahead of inspections.

Police in Thessaloniki arrested a 29-year-old man Tuesday on charges of holding 22 migrants for ransom in an abandoned building outside the city. Officers are still seeking his accomplices.

Officers of the Thessaloniki security police's anti-extortion unit have arrested a 53-year-oldl man who allegedly demanded 70,000 euros from the owner of a private clinic in the northern port, claiming to represent the family of a deceased former patient.

Greek police say they have rescued 22 migrants who had been held hostage in northern Greece, allegedly by three men who were extorting their families for money.

The migrants had been held in a complex of abandoned buildings in the Thessaloniki suburb of Oreokastro.