Cop, cashier held for heist
A policeman has been arrested on suspicion of conspiring with a bank cashier to steal hundreds of thousands of euros at gunpoint from a western Athens bank last month, police said yesterday. The robbery took place on April 22, at the Aegaleo branch of the Postal Savings Bank, with a solitary gunman snatching 669,625 euros from the open safe before making his escape on a motorbike. It was pension payment day, which is why the safe was unusually well-stocked. But police said one of the three cashiers on duty had been in cahoots with the robber, and had left the safe open to facilitate his accomplice. A 33-year-old policeman serving at the Omonia station was arrested on suspicion of mounting the heist. His colleagues also detained the 43-year-old cashier and a third man believed to have driven the getaway motorbike. Officers recovered 382,000 euros from the three suspects, as well as three handguns and 40 bullets.
