A Thessaloniki prosecutor launched an investigation yesterday into a citizen’s claim that the city’s stray cats and dogs are being rounded up and fed to circus animals.

The man, who owns a dry-cleaning store in the eastern Thessaloniki suburb of Kalamaria, filed a complaint stating that, on September 23, his neighbors told him a stranger had driven off in a van with his puppy.

The man, whose name was withheld, claims to have information that the puppy, along with other strays taken off the streets, are sold as food for animals at a circus currently in the city. The prosecutor has ordered the circus grounds to be searched and the owner of the van to be sought out.

A July 2003 law requires municipalities to round up strays, neuter, vaccinate and then release them. This year, hundreds have been poisoned in Greece’s Olympic cities. So far, nobody has been charged with the deaths.