Police are investigating whether three suspects being held in connection with anarchist attacks against officers may also be part of a notorious gang of armed bank robbers, sources told Sunday’s Kathimerini.

Petros Karasaradis, 40, Giorgos Kalaitzidis, 26, and Panayiotis Aspiotis, 27, were all remanded in custody last week on charges of forming a criminal gang and attempted murder after they were arrested in connection with a firebomb attack by anarchists on riot police officers in central Athens two months ago.

Now, police sources said, investigators are examining whether the three men belonged to a five-member gang known as the “Thieves in Black,” who carried out five bank robberies in central Athens between November 2002 and January this year, stealing some 500,000 euros. During one of the raids, the gang fired on officers who chased them.

However, police have virtually ruled out the possibility that the three men in custody were involved in the shooting of a special guard who was killed outside the British military attache’s residence in Kifissia on New Year’s Eve last year.