“My father hadn’t even died yet and they seized our sheepfold”: The complaints that led to the family criminal organization in Crete

The lawsuit record connected the household transgression enactment that extorted and bushed farmers successful Vorizia and Amari, Crete, describes blackmail, arson, violence, and amerciable enrichment astatine the disbursal of dozens of radical who were driven disconnected their properties.

What preceded were the hopeless pleas of dozens of citizens from the Amari area, who adjacent traveled to Chania and the General Police Directorate of Crete asking the constabulary for assistance and protection.

The arrests were carried retired simultaneously successful Kallithea, astatine a session wherever the 43-year-old main fishy was hospitalized, and successful Vorizia, wherever his 2 nephews, aged 39 and 44, were handcuffed. Among those arrested were besides their wives, who unneurotic with different idiosyncratic were charged with livestock theft.

Since 2021

Residents of the Amari area, arsenic reported by neakriti.gr, had been surviving done a existent nightmare since 2021, with the accused driving them from their homes and fields, which they past seized and declared successful their ain livestock registrations successful bid to illegally cod subsidies from OPEKEPE.

Anyone who reacted became the people of intimidation and threats against their ain beingness and the lives of their household members. According to the lawsuit file, they acceptable cars connected fire, tore down tract fences, and flattened olive and vineyard cultivations truthful they could aboriginal contiguous the onshore arsenic leased plots and cod subsidies for herds they ne'er really possessed.

The arrested individuals, unneurotic with others included successful the lawsuit file, are accused of extorting astatine slightest 40 landowners from 2021 until today, arsenic good arsenic of mounting occurrence to a 4×4 conveyance successful May 2025 arsenic an enactment of retaliation.

How the transgression enactment operated, collecting thousands of euros for non-existent sheep

They chopped down 400 vine trunks and 134 olive trees

In different incidental that took spot successful May 2022, a section nonmigratory recovered his vineyard, located successful the Plaka Fourfoura country of Amari, wholly butchered. The perpetrators utilized electrical shears to chop down 400 vine trunks. This happened due to the fact that helium had refused to lease them a tract and had besides reported them to the constabulary for cultivation damage. The proprietor of an olive grove was confronted with a likewise horrific scene. He recovered each 134 of his olive trees chopped flush to the ground.

A pistillate primitively from the country besides testified that arsenic soon arsenic her begetter passed away, the accused seized some his fields and his sheepfold, declaring them arsenic their ain adjacent to the taxation authorities successful bid to assertion them done adverse possession.

The harm caused to the crops of Amari residents is estimated to transcend €200,000, portion the wealth they illegally collected from OPEKEPE exceeds fractional a cardinal euros.

From the fiscal probe and cross-checks conducted, members of the group, on with relatives and adjacent friends, had submitted mendacious declarations to the Integrated Administration and Control System (OSDE) for livestock they did not possess.

They did not adjacent ain fractional of the goats and sheep they declared, portion adjacent those counted successful their sheepfolds did not carnivore receptor tags and are considered stolen livestock. The full magnitude allegedly collected from European Union funds betwixt 2021 and 2025 amounts to nary little than €586,498.73.

How they justified the highly costly 4x4s

In their village, the accused claimed that the wealth they were throwing astir connected the highly costly 4×4 vehicles they drove came from young farmers’ programs successful which they had participated.