Robber search closes Piraeus
Special forces, the coast guard and members of the anti-terrorist squad took part in a fruitless search for two armed bank robbers in Piraeus yesterday which led to a section of the port being closed off for several hours. Officers were called to the area after police were told at 10.24 a.m. that two men had held up a branch of ATEBank in Drapetsona and had made off toward the port of Piraeus with 25,000 euros. A huge land and sea operation was then mounted as police were informed that the robbers had boarded one of the ferries in port. The area was cordoned off and specially trained officers and frogmen boarded at least five ships in their search for the armed men. They failed to find the suspects and it is thought that the information they were initially given concerning the whereabouts of the pair may have been wrong. Officers said they were surprised to find that CCTV cameras at the port, which should have been working from before the Athens Olympics, had never been activated.
