A 28-year-old Italian man was handcuffed by police officers in Mykonos last Saturday afternoon (31/8) for robbery and membership of a criminal organisation.

According to reports, the arrested man, in collaboration with at least two men, allegedly assaulted a tourist from Hungary outside a well-known nightclub in Mykonos. The attack occurred at the moment the man was attempting to enter a vehicle with four friends. During the attack, one of the assailants even removed a wristwatch worth between 50,000 and 75,000 euros from the tourist’s hand.

However, it did not get far as the watch was recovered from the victim when one of his four friends, using physical force, managed to wrest it from the perpetrator’s possession. Subsequently, the offender boarded a silver coloured scooter type motorcycle owned by a vehicle hire company.

The preliminary investigation revealed that the arrested man from Italy was the driver of the motorbike used after the robbery, and that he is the person who went to the rental business and rented the bike.

From further investigation, it was further revealed that the perpetrators, at an unspecified point in time, went to Mykonos and acting together, joined and formed a gang with the purpose of committing robberies against tourists.

Specifically, the members of the gang having a specific operational plan identified their target (the victim) and using physical violence one of the perpetrators attacked him and removed from his possession a wristwatch of great monetary value, while they subsequently escaped using motorbike.

At the same time, in order to disguise their criminal activity and to make it difficult for the authorities to identify them, it was established that the members of the gang rented the bike from a company in Mykonos, showing identity details of another person.