Greece: Nikos Palaiokostas, the Ghost, the Greek Robin Hood & brother of Vassilis Palaiokostas has passed awayThis morning Nikos Palaiokostas passed away at Trikala hospital. Since 2021 Nikos had been released due to health grounds and was able to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest in his family home in Trikala, from where he was able to leave twice a week, for dialysis treatment at the hopsital’s Kidney Unit.
Nikos Palaiokostas born in Moschofyto, in the mountains above Trikala, to a large family with a background as shepherds. He was a bank robber, beloved of the anarchist/revolutionary movement, hero of the poor in Greece and the older brother of the still wanted Vassilis Palaiokostas . He operated for several years either with his brother or alone, mainly committing bank robberies and one kidnapping.
After a brief job as a sailor, he quickly began to engage in ‘petty theft’ and ‘burglary’ together with his younger brother, Vassilis Palaiokostas, who in the meantime had begun earlier. In 1988, Nikos Palaiokostas was imprisoned in the prison of Trikala but with the help of his brother Vassilis, he escaped on 18th December of that year. However, on 3rd February, 1990, Nikos was arrested again for theft, while in April of the same year, Vassilis was also arrested for car theft while preparing a plan to help his brother escape again.
Palaiokostas’ acquaintance with Kostas Samaras (known by the nicknames Artist or Butterfly ) in the 1980s was crucial as the three of them began committing bank robberies in various areas throughout Greece. The most famous robbery of these took place in June 1992, when they robbed the National Bank branch in Kalambaka, Trikala, liberating 125,000,000 drachmas, which remains to this day the largest bank robbery in Greece.On 15th December 1995, the Palaiokostas gang carried out the first kidnapping in Greece, kidnapping industrialist Alexandros Chaitoglou from his home in Thessaloniki. The Palaiokostas gang then demanded a ransom of 260,000,000 drachmas for the industrialist’s release. The Chaitoglou family paid the ransom to the kidnappers, with the authorities launching a major manhunt at the time in their attempt to locate and arrest the gang. Only after 3 years of investigations and pursuits, in 1999, did they manage to achieve some results, as after a car accident at the Lamia – Livadia national road, the authorities arrested Vassilis, who w
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