Gun-wielding masked men hold 13 hostages in Piraeus Bank before escaping with loot
- Written by E.Tsiliopoulos
Four masked armed robbers held eight bank employees and five customers hostages for two hours on Tuesday while they emptied the cash registers and vault of a Piraeus Bank branch in Ambelokipi, central Athens.
According to an initial police estimate, the four perpetrators stole about 60,000 euros in cash and unknown content from 21 deposit boxes they managed to crack open in the roughly two hours they spent in the bank.
Police is looking at CCTV footage to piece together the movements of the armed men. They said the suspects entered in pairs at the branch on Kifisias Avenue shortly after 14:00 (local time) and used what appear to be rifles to hold up employees and customers. They wore silicon masks with fake faces which were not of politicians, as some media reported.
They then forced bank employees to take them to the vault in the basement, opened it using drills and other tools they carried in their sacks and removed the content from 21 deposit boxes. They also emptied cash from the cashier registers on the main floor. Before leaving, the robbers threw disinfectant liquid, presumably to eliminate genetic material and other traces. They left the bank at about 16:00 and employees notified police who are now on site investigating the incident.
Police is puzzled that nobody outside the bank branch noticed anything was wrong saying employees and customers received phone calls on their mobiles but didn’t respond.
