Greek shipping magnate Pericles Panagopoulos, kidnapped in Athens on Jan. 12, was released early yesterday near the Greek capital, police said.
The 74-year-old shipping tycoon, who founded Greece’s largest ferry company, Attica, was picked up by the police near the Aspropyrgos industrial zone west of the capital where his kidnappers told his family they had left him. Greek media said his family had paid a ransom of 15 million to 20 million euros (US$20 million to US$26 million).
Panagopoulos, one of the richest men in Greece, did not appear to have been mistreated by his captors, but after being held for a week while suffering from a serious illness he was to be hospitalized in a private clinic in Athens, a police source said.
The police had remained silent throughout the kidnapping drama, but media reported that the family of the tycoon had left the ransom as demanded in an isolated spot 100km north of Athens.
His wife Katerina had said last week she was “ready to pay the sum” to the abductors, who captured her husband along with his chauffeur in the seaside suburb where he lives.
She appealed to them to release her husband, who needs daily medical treatment including insulin.
The three kidnappers armed with Kalashnikovs used a truck to block the car of Panagopoulos, who had just left his home in Kavouri, a residential suburb of the Greek capital.
The chauffeur was found later in a rural area, bound to a tree with handcuffs and with a hood over his head, police said.
Kidnappings are rare in Greece and the perpetrators are usually caught, but this is the third high-profile case since the summer. Last month, cardiologist Epameinondas Gerasimopoulos was abducted by two gunmen from his home in the affluent suburb of Vari and is still missing.
In June, leading Thessaloniki industrialist George Mylonas was kidnapped by three men as he drove home with his wife. He was released two weeks later after his family paid 12 million euros, according to police.
Two months later, police arrested one of Greece’s most wanted fugitives as the mastermind behind Mylonas’ abduction.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
ON THE LAM: The Brazilian Supreme Court said that the former president tried to burn his ankle monitor off as part of an attempt to orchestrate his escape from Brazil Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — under house arrest while he appeals a conviction for a foiled coup attempt — was taken into custody on Saturday after the Brazilian Supreme Court deemed him a high flight risk. The court said the far-right firebrand — who was sentenced to 27 years in prison over a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 elections — had attempted to disable his ankle monitor to flee. Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s detention was a preventive measure as final appeals play out. In a video made
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
RSS