ATHENS – Unable to rein in soccer violence despite repeated brief crackdowns, Greek police have now rounded up 17 suspects of an alleged criminal gang said to have taken part in hooligan clashes and blackmailing businesses.

Maj. Gen. Fotis Douitsis, head of the police’s criminal investigations in greater Athens, said the arrests came in raids across the capital. The gang members face charges of extortion, bombings, arson attacks, and multiple assaults.

Police seized automatic weapons, handguns, hand grenades, swords, knives, brass knuckles, and €248,090 ($270,000) in cash. “What is alarming is that members of the criminal organization participated in (violent) incidents involving soccer fans,” Douitsis said, without giving further details.

Fourteen people in the alleged gang were arrested earlier on charges of running a protection ring to make businesses pay them to avoid being inspected by health inspectors and avoid repeated fines and prosecution.

Nine were public officials, and the accused face a long line of charges, including forming a criminal organization, extortion, and bribery. The gang is estimated to have taken in more than €700,000 ($766,023) in illicit gains, with health inspectors and the ministry official receiving up to €10,000 ($10,943) in each case.

Authorities have certified 47 cases and confiscated several objects, including cash, watches, cellphones, laptops, hard disks, official stamps, and documents. The main targets were hotels and restaurants.

Members of the organization included a head of a municipal authority and employees from other public services in the Attica region. The operation was broken after a complaint was made against a woman accused of blackmailing business owners.

Greek authorities launched a crackdown on sports-related violence after a police officer was shot with a flare and fatally injured in December during a fan riot in Athens. Top-flight soccer stadiums were closed for two months for a security overhaul, but the violence continues largely unabated.

FLARING UP

Police said the gang targeted mostly bars, restaurants and gas stations for extortion payments, and carried out bombings, arson attacks and beatings. Charges against the suspected members include membership of a criminal organization, extortion, drug trafficking, forgery and multiple criminal offenses.

The roundup came a few days after a battle between fans of the same team – Panathinaikos – in what was believed to be a tug ‘o war over who controls stands where fans regularly light up flares and often toss them onto the field.

Several people were injured during the brief clash before Panathinaikos played  Cypriot side AEK Larnaca. Three were hospitalized – a 38-year-old with a gunshot wound in the left leg, a 25-year-old with abdominal wounds from a sharp instrument and a 22-year-old injured from a beating.

The attackers far outnumbered its rivals and several tried to get into the team’s stadium in downtown Athens but were blocked by police, who arrested 72 people and seized clubs, wooden poles and knives.

All denied involvement and refused to give their names or any other information, said Kathimerini, adding that police said more than half those arrested have a criminal record and been involved in violent clashes before as well as trafficking drugs and robberies.

Soccer violence in Greece has led to fans being killed, club owners accused of fixing games, corruption and led to authorities banning some fan clubs, and 25 fans of Olympiakos in December, 2023 charged with forming a criminal gang and taking part in the clash that led to the death of a police officer shot in the leg with a flare.

Reports said they were involved in at least three other battles with police and other violent attacks as the government and authorities have been unable to stop assaults and street battles and violence inside stadiums.

The 25 were said to have been identified after police grilled people during a stepped-up probe into the continuing sports violence with authorities questioning dozens of sports fans, some of whom were said to have given up names.

(Material from the Associated Press was used in this report)