Rizai’s crime links under scrutiny
Police yesterday were investigating a suspected connection between Alket Rizai, the 35-year-old Albanian jailbreak fugitive arrested on Monday in a rented house in northeastern Attica, and Chrysanthos Anagnostopoulos, the brother of a murdered nightclub owner, after it emerged that one of the vehicles discovered outside Rizai’s hideout belonged to Anagnostopoulos. Officers arrested 38-year-old Anagnostopoulos yesterday on charges of harboring a criminal and illegal weapons possession after finding several guns at his home. The suspect reportedly denies lending Rizai his car – a bullet-proof Mercedes, claiming that he had been trying to sell the 300,000-euro vehicle and had given it to a would-be buyer last week to test-drive before purchasing. Police believe that Anagnostopolos may have played a key role in organizing hideouts for Rizai since the latter’s dramatic helicopter jailbreak from Athens’s Korydallos Prison in February with notorious bank robber Vassilis Palaiocostas, who is still at large. The 38-year-old is the brother of Giorgos Anagnostopoulos, the owner of a string of Attica nightclubs who was executed in a Mafia-style shooting in the Athens district of Galatsi in June. According to police, Rizai had been friends with the murdered nightclub owner. Complicating matters further, one of the clubs owned by the late Anagnostopoulos was built under the supervision of contractor Giorgos Tromboukis, believed to be a key member of a crime syndicate linked to the abduction of a shipping magnate in January. Authorities are now investigating whether Rizai had any links to Tromboukis and the syndicate. Sources said yesterday that the cell phone Rizai had been using in jail prior to his escape in February had been registered to a company belonging to Tromboukis. Rizai was yesterday charged with five crimes including belonging to a criminal organization. Another three suspects, including Rizai’s 33-year-old Greek girlfriend and an Albanian couple believed to have organized logistics for the fugitives, also face a string of charges. These three suspects, as well as Rizai and Anagnostopoulos are due to appear before an investigating magistrate on Friday.
