ATHENS – The murder of a civil engineer who had done surveying work on Mykonos, being overrun by development, has led Supreme Court prosecutor Georgia Adeilini to order a probe of organized crime on the island.

She said that cases involving money laundering, homicides, and other serious offenses linked to gangster networks on Mykonos would be investigated, as well as on other Cycladic islands and in Athens and Thessaloniki.

That came in the wake of the shooting death of Panagiotis Stathis, 54, who had done work on Mykonos where organized crime is said behind development for profit on an island drawing hordes of tourists annually.

Adeilini ordered the lifting of phone privacy and said the banking and tax records could also be scrutinized to find out if mobsters are ruling the island, the New Democracy government and police unable to rein them in.

In a directive to the deputy prosecutor of the Athens Appeals Court, who oversees the Attica Security Directorate in the prosecution of organized crime, and the President of the Council for the Coordination of Analysis and Investigations at the Ministry of Citizen Protection, she said what the press calls the “Mykonos Mafia.”

She added that, “It is evident there is a need to investigate serious crimes potentially constituting organized crime,” including looking for felony extortion linked to construction activities, real estate transactions, business ‘protection’ schemes, homicides, serious bodily harm, money laundering, violations of urban planning laws, antiquities protection laws, environmental regulations, drug trafficking, forgery, and more.

Mykonos has developed a reputation for lawlessness, including tax evasion and price gouging of tourists and public beaches being taken by private businesses and reports that gangsters now rule the island.