Two men gunned down on the island of Corfu, a 46-year-old Serbian and 43-year-old Montenegrin were likely the victims of a war between two rival gangs based in the city of Kotor in Montenegro, initial reports said.

The assassinations outside their holiday villa on one of Greece's most popular islands, with tourists far fewer during the COVID-19 pandemic, shocked locals although there are periodic underworld murders across Greece.

The Hellenic Police (ELAS) and Serbian media reports indicated that the victims were high-ranking members of the Skaljari gang and were murdered by members of the rival Kavac gang, said Kathimerini.

Their bullet-riddled bodies were found by a masseur with whom the two men had made an appointment for a professional massage in the parking lot of the holiday home, inside a rented car.

Both gangs have taken their names from the districts of the city of Kotor where they are based. They once formed one gang trafficking drugs from South America into Europe, according to reports.

The gang, however, split into two in 2014 over a cocaine deal, the schism leading to a deadly feud involving other mobsters from Montenegro and Serbia, both countries with notorious organized crime mobs.