They carefully selected their targets, organized the assassination plan and executed it with precision. The reason for this is the members of the criminal organization of the “cigarettes”, one of the toughest groups ever to operate in our country.

These were the “Russian-Ponts” or the “Ukrainians” who had managed to become the number one in the smuggling of contraband cigarettes while having in their “assets” the murders of some of the highest in dynamics members of the so-called Greek Mafia. Yannis Skaftouros, Vassilis Roubetes, Dionysis Mouzakitis and Vangelis Zambounis are, according to the EL.AS, some of their victims.

The reason? Conflicting interests in the illegal cigarette business. A business worth millions of euros in which, as shown by the investigation of the Greek FBI, many wanted to get involved but few managed to survive. More specifically, as well-informed sources told protothema.gr, some of the Greek Mafia members who fell dead from the organization’s gunfire wanted to “get in” on the contraband cigarettes and were automatically targeted.

Regarding their modus operandi in committing the homicides, two people were always chosen as the physical perpetrators and they used piercing bullets to ensure that nothing would stand in their way.

They would then assemble in one of the areas they had and “clean up” the evidence of the crime. Typical is the way they acted in the murder of Vangelis Zambounis. According to informed sources, the perpetrators, after the murder, gathered in a place they had in Aspropyrgos and, as it emerged from the surveillance of the police, began to dismantle the weapons used in the crime. More specifically, a sound suggestive of metal cutting was heard.

In fact, investigators were even able to “catch”a conversation during which the defendants can be heard saying in Russian: “We cleaned things up. We threw away the clothes. We left nothing. We took a bath.”