Bounty offered for Palaiocostas
Police said on Wednesday that they would give 1 million euros to anyone providing information leading to the capture of the country’s most wanted bank robber, Vassilis Palaiocostas, after the fugitive’s fingerprints were reportedly found on the remains of a parcel bomb that killed a senior aide at the Citizens’ Protection Ministry in Athens last June.
A police statement issued on Wednesday guaranteed anonymity to anyone with information about the 45-year-old serial robber who has been on the run since his second escape by helicopter from Korydallos Prison in 2009. Officers set up roadblocks in Fokida, central Greece, after locating a Toyota sports utility vehicle in the village of Gravia. Palaiocostas is believed to have been driving the car on Monday when a police chase failed to stop the vehicle. Late on Tuesday, police had issued an arrest warrant for Palaicostas on charges of murder and membership of a terrorist group. There has been no authenticated claim of responsibility for the letter bomb that blew up last June in the hands of 52-year-old Giorgos Vassilakis, an aide to then minister Michalis Chrysochoidis.
