Fatal raid on betting shop
The 55-year-old owner of a betting shop in Patissia, near central Athens, was shot dead early yesterday during a raid on his store by two gunmen believed to have been behind another bloody holdup on a mobile phone retailer a few minutes earlier. The raid on the branch of the betting company OPAP took place at around 10.30 a.m. and the holdup on the phone retailer about 25 minutes earlier, police said. The OPAP store owner was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. Reacting to the incident, OPAP pledged to look into ways of restricting the amount of cash kept at its branches to discourage robbers, who have been targeting the betting company’s branches with increasing frequency. In the first raid, two gunmen barged into the store, grabbed cell phones off the racks and fled with an employee in pursuit. During the chase, one of the robbers turned and shot the Afghan employee, causing him minor injuries.
