Hotel robbers in pre-dawn spree
Police were stepping up efforts yesterday to catch an armed gang of at least three men believed to have robbed five Athens hotels during two pre-dawn sprees over the weekend, injuring one employee and stealing over 9,000 euros. The first attack took place at 1.40 a.m. on Saturday in the Neos Cosmos district, where three men stole 5,000 euros from the reception desk of the Athinaion Hotel and escaped on foot. Police said that an hour and a half later the same three robbed the Phoenix Hotel in Glyfada, taking 1,600 euros. The next attack was at 3.55 a.m., at the Ilissos Hotel in Neos Cosmos, where two men took 150 euros from employee Antonios Samouchos, 35, after knocking him on the head with a pistol butt. Early yesterday, apparently the same two men stole 500 euros and a mobile phone from the employee manning the reception desk at the Xenophon Hotel in Patissia. Panayiotis Anagnostopoulos, 34, said the robbers were Albanians. The last attack was at the Holiday Inn on Michalakopoulou Street, netting the robbers 2,000 euros.
