ATHENS — Greek police will question a 30-year-old Georgian man caught trying to leave through the border with Bulgaria over the brutal suffocation murder of a 20-year mother, Caroline Crouch, during a home invasion in Athens.

The man, who was not identified, was apprehended trying to use a forged passport, said Kathimerini, and was to be taken to Athens for interrogation as police have stepped up their investigation into the killing.

He reportedly had a criminal record, including for a violent robbery of an elderly couple in the Athens suburb of Pikermi but no further details were available, including why he was not in jail for such a serious offense.

Police were said to be probing an Albanian-led gang that includes gypsies and other foreigners thought to be behind at least a dozen robberies around the Greek capital which is home to a number of organized crime outfits.

The victim's husband, 32-year-old helicopter pilot Charalambos Anagnostopoulos , said he saw the face of one of them and was able to describe it to police, the paper said.

He had been tied and gagged in another room but after the invaders left was able to free himself and get to his wife in an attic where she was hiding and found, killed despite her 11-month-old child being with her.

Greece's state broadcaster ERT said police were centering the probe on professional burglars who had committed similar also violent break-ins and were looking at CCTV footage and trying to find clues.

The victim was born in Greece but had a British passport and also a Filipino background, media reports said. The robbers shoved pieces of cloth in the her mouth before pushing their hands against her nose and lips, which caused her to suffocate, reports said.

They killed her even though her husband revealed where the family kept cash and valuables, the robbers getting away with some 15,000 euros ($18,219) in an incident that has shocked the country.