Police bounties old and new

The announcement by citizen protection minister Nikos Dendias to set a bounty of 4 million euros for the arrests of Christodoulos Xiros, Nikos Maziotis, and the murders of the two Golden Dawn members in Neo Irakleio, is not the first time Greek authorities have offered bounties for arrests.

In fact, a bounty had been set for Christodoulos Xiros, before his arrest and exposure, as a member of the 7 November terrorist group.

Police bounties

A one million euro bounty was set for Vasilis Palaiokostas in 2011. Before that time, bounties had been set for Palaiokostas and his brother to the tune of 250 million drachmas each, for the robbery of the museum at ancient Olympia.

In October 2009, bounties of 600,000 euros were set for three persons connected to organized crime, Symeon Seisidis, Marios Seisidis, and Grigoris Tsironis, aka the robbers in black.

In 2007, the government set bounties ranging between 100,000 to one million euros for information leading to the arrest of arsonists of forests and rural areas for the 2007 fire fighting season. The range was according to the severity of the incident and the possible collateral damage, injuries, or deaths.

For the 17 November terrorist organization members, a bounty of one billion drachmas was set after the assassination of UK military attache Stephen Saunders in June 2008.

The Greek government also set a bounty of 800,00 euros for the organization Revolutionary Struggle that undertook responsibility for an attack with an anti tank rocket propelled grenade against the US embassy in Athens on 12 January 2007

Meanwhile, in January 2007, the United States offered a one million dollar reward for anyone offering information leading to the arrest of the persons that launched the rocket against its embassy. That bounty lapsed a year after the attack.