A 41-year-old Albanian man has been identified as the “parking lot rat,” who, over the past three years, had been plundering private parking facilities in downtown Athens, stealing luxury cars from them.

As determined by the investigation conducted by the Athens Police Department for Crime Investigation and Resolution, the 41-year-old had been active since 2022, targeting extremely expensive vehicles, mainly jeeps and SUVs, which were parked in private garages.

Regarding his modus operandi, the criminal would enter garages and either snatch the car keys from the storage area or simply collect the vehicles from the employees by pretending to be a relative of the owner.

Using this method, he managed to steal 8 luxury cars, with a total value exceeding €400,000.

He Stole a Jeep Worth Over €80,000

One of his victims described to protothema.gr how the 41-year-old deceived the parking attendant by claiming to be his brother and then drove off with the car as if it were his own, even paying for the parking ticket.

“I had parked my car at a corner parking lot on Ippokratous Street. I left it there around noon for about 2-3 hours. When I went back to pick it up, the employee told me, ‘Your brother came and took it.’ It seemed a bit suspicious to me that the attendant just handed it over like that. He gave him the keys without a ticket—he even paid for the parking! He didn’t even have the parking stub, and he was of a completely different nationality than me. I don’t know how the attendant believed he was my brother and just gave him the car. And when I saw the security footage, I realized he never actually gave him the keys—the guy had tricked him,” said the owner, who was in shock when he realized his luxury gray jeep, worth over €80,000, had vanished into thin air.

Luckily for him, the car had two GPS trackers installed, and with the assistance of the police, he was able to locate it three hours later, abandoned in the Kerameikos area.

“My car, thankfully, had two GPS trackers, so I knew where it was. He (the thief) must have realized it too, which is why he ditched it outside a bar in Kerameikos. He still had the keys, but I unlocked it and got in using my spare set. In fact, he even crashed the door while trying to park it,” he added.