The trial was suspended and will continue in the middle of next month of the five Britons accused of possessing a 300 kg cargo that was seized in June 2022, in Thessaloniki.

The Three-member Criminal Appeal Court of Thessaloniki, before which they were referred to stand trial, decided to grant the interruption in order to to translate the subpoena into English. The defendants’ defense attorneys had raised the issue of the translation of the summons.

Four of the Britons (aged 38 to 52) are in temporary detention, the eighteen months of which will expire next December. The fifth defendant was arrested on a European warrant in the Netherlands, where he was held in Amsterdam prisons and subsequently released. He himself had consented to his extradition to our country, but the Dutch judicial authorities rejected the relevant request of the Greek authorities.

The four defendants present were asked to take the stand at the start of the proceedings and stated that they did not know why they were being charged. “All the documents given to us are in the Greek language” they mentioned among others.

According to the case file, the illegal cargo had been imported, through the port of Thessaloniki, in a container carrying a legal cargo of bananas from Colombia. The British had set up their “headquarters” in a luxurious mansion in the heart of Thessaloniki, from where they intended to transport the cocaine to Central and Northern Europe and Australia.

This particular circuit – in which the fifth defendant allegedly plays a leading role – appears to be linked to another large shipment of cocaine (654 kg), seized in a port in Calabriain Italy, and was destined for Thessaloniki.