Five people have been arrested in Roma camps on the outskirts of Athens and Thessaloniki for illegally connecting their homes to the power grid, authorities said Thursday, while hundreds of meters of cables were removed.
A police statement said three people were taken into custody for alleged electricity theft during a raid Wednesday in a camp near Gerakas, east of Athens. Electricity company workers disconnected and took away 300 meters of cables.
Also Wednesday, a 20-year-old man was arrested in the Thermi area east of Thessaloniki for allegedly trying to connect what police described as “a shack” he lived in to an electricity pole.
And in Neapoli, a 27-year-old man was taken into custody for allegedly illegally hooking up a coffee shop to the power grid.
The arrests came a day after police in northern Greece broke a gang that had allegedly found ways of hacking, or otherwise tampering with, hundreds of domestic and industrial electricity meters. Police said that ring made at least €371,000 from individuals and companies who paid subscriptions to have their electricity bills fraudulently reduced on a regular basis.
