ATHENS – Greek police investigating the gunning down of a civil engineer outside his offices in the neighborhood of Psychiko are said to be looking at his work on Mykonos where unlawful construction has taken place and taken over beaches.

Panagiotis Stathis, 54, was shot in his car by a gunman on a scooter with fake license plates, captured on CCTV, showing the victim shot multiple times and then a final kill shot.

The method was similar to that in the 2021 shooting death of investigative journalist Giorgos Karaivaz outside his home that police are examining as a likely underworld hit, the reporter having looked into gangsters and police corruption.

Stathis’ killing bears the hallmarks of a Greek mob hit as well and Kathimerini said the investigation is zeroing in on his work on the island where officials and the government haven’t been able to check unlawful development.

Stathis had been conducting land survey studies on Mykonos, Paros and Ios since the late 1990s through a technical company he co-owned, and drawing up plans for more major investments and beach bars known for violating laws.

He allegedly bought a plot of land in the Agios Stefanos area of the island but the report said it couldn’t be confirmed whether that had brought a confrontation with someone on the island where people are jockeying to take over more spaces.

Stathis was said to be highly regarded for his work on the island where looking into construction that allegedly has links to the underworld has become dangerous and that he was on Mykonos at least once a week to work and meet officials.

He previously complained to police he had been assaulted there but didn’t say who did it or why and in 2021 filed a complaint with the police in the Halandri neighborhood of Athens he was attacked there by unknown assailants.

At the time of the shooting he was in a car that belonged to his business partner, the killer seen on CCTV footage moving in the area, waiting for the victim for around an hour and then firing 20 rounds through the car window from a pistol.

In March of 2023, Manolis Psarros, a state archaeologist who worked on Mykonos was beaten savagely by an unidentified man with a possible accomplice in Athens, left unconscious and bleeding in the street.

Despina Koutsoumba, the head of the archaeologists association who protested the attack said he worked on cases involving alleged violations on Mykonos and had been called as a witness in the past in trials resulting from those cases.

Four months later, police arrested an Albanian man in Athens believed to be a suspect, who admitted beating a real estate agent on Mykonos in 2020 who had complained about unlawful construction and corruption, naming the then police Deputy Commander, a lawyer and Albanian contractor.