Homicide detectives investigating the death of a woman whose body was found inside a suitcase in an abandoned building in Kypseli, a residential district of Athens, on 18 July, have made a breakthrough after establishing her identity.

The victim has now been identified as a British woman, born in February 1988, following an official notice sent to the Hellenic Police (ELAS) by the Washington office of Interpol, the international police cooperation organisation.

Immediately after the body was discovered, Greek authorities took fingerprints from the woman, but found no match in the national database. DNA testing subsequently ruled out any connection to missing persons cases already reported by relatives who had come forward and provided samples.

Once it emerged that the woman had been wearing shorts bearing the name of a French university, all international police channels, including Interpol, were alerted. As the days passed without a match, detectives from the Organised Crime Division increasingly suspected she was not Greek.

The breakthrough came on Monday evening, when the US branch of Interpol confirmed the woman was a 38 year old British national with the initials E.R.

From their initial inquiries, investigators have established that the woman arrived in Greece from Cyprus in the recent period, giving the investigation a starting point. Detectives first want to establish whether she had a travelling companion that day, information that will come from the airline concerned. They are also looking into whether any hotel room was booked or house rented in the greater Athens area during the period in question, following her arrival in the capital.

It is considered certain that they will also approach Cyprus Police, who will in turn gather evidence likely to prove useful in solving the case. The British woman is thought to have been living in the United States, since her biometric data was found logged in a database there, according to the Interpol document sent from Washington to the Hellenic Police.