Journalist’s murder connected to Greek organized crime
Greek police in Athens believe that the shooting assassination of Giorgos Karaivaz, a reputed investigative crime journalist, was ordered by organized crime figures. According to these reports, he was investigating a series of hits between rival syndicates at the time of his death.
He was shot eight times outside his home on April 9, according to reports, by a gunmen on the back of a two-person motor scooter. This person then got off and delivered two more fatal shots to the head as Karaivaz lay bleeding on a sidewalk.
The newspaper Kathimerini stated Karaivaz had “personal and professional ties to organized crime rackets that have engaged in back-and-forth killings that have gone mostly unsolved, and that corrupt police were involved”, according to The National Herald.
That could make solving the murder more difficult, as the Greek underworld has been extremely difficult to pin down for law enforcement.
Karaivas covered various publications and wrote about it on his blog Bloko, where he said he received death threats but police said he didn’t ask for protection without explaining why.
The 52-year-old journalist was also a key witness in a 2015-2017 National Intelligence Service probe into dirty police and sex/gambling rackets, where two suspects were killed and a police officer was shot dead as well.
Karaivaz was also a witness in an ongoing case involving a large protection racket, organized crime operating almost with impunity across the country and reports that some dirty cops are tied to it, the paper said.
EU Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders spoke on the murder of Giorgos Karaivaz on April 9 as a “despicable and cowardly act”, during a press conference following the completion of the Council of Ministers of European Affairs.
“We must protect the European way of life and European values,” he added.
