Greece arrests woman suspected of fuelling devastating wildfire with cigarette
Greece has arrested a Georgian woman suspected of discarding a cigarette that helped trigger one of several wildfires razing land and threatening homes on the island of Chios.
Blazes broke out on Chios in the Aegean Sea on Sunday and tore through 10,000 acres of mainly bush and pasture land in three days, Greece's climate crisis and civil protection ministry said on Wednesday.
The ongoing flames also caused significant disruption, including power outages, water shortages, and damage to property.
The fire brigade said a woman was arrested on Tuesday night and that authorities were still investigating the cause of the fires.
The Georgian was charged with unintentional arson, two fire brigade officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Witnesses saw her drop a cigarette, one of the officials said.
Though the wildfires were largely contained by Wednesday, hundreds of firefighters remained on Chios to prevent rekindling and bring all fronts under control, the Greek fire brigade said. On Tuesday, residents of a seaside village in the south west of the island were ordered to leave as white smoke rose over a nearby beach.
Greece's minister of climate crisis and civil protection, Yiannis Kefalogiannis, arrived on the island on Monday.
He said: 'The situation on the island since yesterday has been quite difficult because we constantly have new fronts and resurgences and the climatic conditions are not favourable.
'We are faced with simultaneous fires in multiple, geographically unconnected parts of the island — a pattern that cannot be considered coincidental.'
The minister said police forces on the island had been reinforced, while military patrols had been doubled.
At Europe 's southernmost tip, Greece is often hit by wildfires during its hot and dry summers, but authorities say the fast-changing climate is fuelling more destructive blazes.
The Greek government has paid hundreds of millions of euros in damages related to extreme weather to households and farmers, and to update firefighting equipment.
It has upped firefighter numbers to a record 18,000 this year in anticipation of a challenging fire season. They will be assisted by 294 firefighters from five European countries from July 1 to September 15.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
Greece wildfires: woman charged with unintentional arson after cigarette allegedly started blaze on Chios
A Georgian woman accused of accidentally igniting one of several wildfires that have raged relentlessly across the eastern Aegean isle of Chios will appear in court to face charges of unintentional arson. Greek fire brigade officials said the woman, employed as a housekeeper on Chios, the ancestral home of some of Greece's wealthiest shipping families, had 'confessed' to triggering the blaze when she negligently discarded a cigarette. Speaking from the island, Lt Constantine Kozanis told the Guardian the unidentified woman would be tried on Thursday. 'She is being held in detention overnight and will appear in court tomorrow,' he said. 'Because she was caught red-handed the process will move fast now that she has appeared before a public prosecutor. In her testimony to fire brigade investigators she admitted she had thrown a cigarette that had ignited one of [the five] fronts.' Witnesses also reported seeing the incident. More than 400 firefighters, backed by water-dumping aircraft and hundreds of volunteers, have been battling blazes on Chios since Sunday, forcing authorities to call a state of emergency and dozens of villages to be evacuated. Blazes broke out in different areas of the island simultaneously. As the fires spread, fuelled by gale force winds, officials raised the spectre of some of the conflagrations being started deliberately, saying it was otherwise hard to explain how they had erupted in such diverse areas at the same time. Giorgos Toumbos, president of the Chios Mastic Producers Union, told the Greek daily Kathimerini late on Tuesday that efforts were focused on putting out flames raging across a prime plateau to prevent the fires engulfing mastic villages – 14th-century fortified villages famous for their production of mastic resin – farther south. A reported 40,000 hectares have been reduced to ashes on the island. It is unclear how many tourists were visiting Chios when the conflagrations erupted on 22 June. Kozanis said the fires were receding but were by no means 'entirely under control'. 'They have yet to be fully contained,' he added. 'Yes, they are in recession but they have not been extinguished.' A Mediterranean hotspot, Greece is on the frontline of the climate emergency with the country experiencing a dramatic uptick in wildfires because of higher temperatures and ever-drier conditions in recent years. Faced with a dramatic increase in forest fires, Greece's centre-right government has toughened penalties for arson and ecological destruction with the criminal code foreseeing prison terms of up to 20 years and fines of up to €200,000 for such crimes. Greece is experiencing its first heatwave of the summer with temperatures expected to nudge 40C in the coming days.
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The chilling messages revealing how cocaine kingpin plotted rival's brutal murder...and the moment gang realised the police were on to them
Chilling EncroChat messages reveal a British cocaine kingpin plotting the murder of a rival from his luxury Dubai villa - and the moment his gang realised police were on to them. James Harding, 34, and his 'loyal right-hand man' Jayes Kharouti, 39, ran a vast criminal empire that trafficked an estimated £100million worth of cocaine into the UK. They tried to recruit a hitman to put an unnamed rival courier 'permanently out of business', arming him with a gun and ammunition for the 'full M' - meaning murder. Following their conviction at the Old Bailey trial, MailOnline has obtained EncroChat logs which reveal how they went about planning the hit. Harding is shown offering £100,000 for the murder and ordering that the assassin carry out a 'double tap' shot to the head and chest. He was of course unaware that the Met could read EncroChat messages after the platform's encryption was cracked by French police. But after the arrest of an associate, Harding gang are seen panicking as they realise 'the feds' are closing in on them. At the time he was putting together the plot, Harding was posing as a high-end watch salesman and enjoying a luxury lifestyle in Dubai, where he stayed in five-star hotels and drove Bugatti and Lamborghini sports cars. On EncroChat, Harding used the nickname 'thetopsking' while his deputy Kharouti went by the handles 'besttops' and 'topsybricks', prosecutors said. A message sent on April 3, 2020 shows Harding discussing the idea of a 'cryp robbery' - meaning taking drugs from a courier. This later escalated into a murder plot. The defendants are seen talking about how and where the murder would take place, with £100,000 offered as payment to the hitman, who was to be recruited by their associate Jimmy Gottshalk, 37, known on EncroChat as 'Notnice' The proposed location was an isolated car park near Nower Wood nature reserve in Leatherhead, Surrey, with Kharouti saying this was 'the perfect location' because the victim would 'be dead for hours' without anyone coming across his body. Kharouti tells Gottshalk that he already has a gun and a Yamaha TMAX scooter with 'legit plates' ready, prompting Gottshalk to reply that it was 'a dream job for a killer'. Subsequent messages show Kharouti keeping his boss informed about the plan. At one point, Harding tells him the hit should involve a 'double tap' shot to the head and chest. The original plan to kill the courier by the Surrey nature reserve was later called off due to a delay over transport for the hitman. But the men worked on alternative solutions - even arranging the shooting near to the proposed gunman's home. The alleged hitman was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder in the early hours of June 3, 2020, which the defendants were unaware of. However, they became suspicious after two drug runners were arrested on May 20, 2020 with 10kg of cocaine hidden in the back of their car. 'Feds onto encros bro,' Kharouti writes, describing the arrest as 'not normal'. He later adds that he is going to 'switch off' his device and describes himself as 'f****d'. On Tuesday, Harding and Kharouti were found guilty of conspiracy to murder while Harding was also convicted of conspiring with others to import cocaine, which Kharouti, of Epsom, Surrey, had previously admitted. They were remanded into custody to be sentenced on Thursday. The duo's Old Bailey trial was held amid heightened security, with an armed police escort to and from the central London court and prison. Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson KC told the court how the defendants discussed importing a tonne of cocaine over a period of 10 weeks. Harding, who had previous convictions for drugs and false documents, was arrested at Geneva airport in Switzerland on December 27, 2021 and extradited from Switzerland. Kharouti was extradited from Turkey to the UK on June 25 last year - arriving on a private jet at a London airport, where he was met by armed police. In the video, an officer says 'Mr Harding, welcome back,' to which the criminal replies: 'Oh, thanks very much.' The kingpin was then arrested, handed a bulletproof vest and bundled into an armoured police van. Mr Atkinson told an earlier hearing that the pair were responsible for 'approximately 50 importations of cocaine into the UK with a total weight of approximately 1,000 kilograms. Harding sent selfies on the EncroChat encrypted service while using the same phone to arrange the hit The barrister said the gangsters made £60-70,000 per importation, and about £5m in profit overall in just 10 weeks. However, the total street value of all the drugs they sold was thought to be around £100million. Giving evidence, Harding denied using the handle 'the topsking', saying it belonged to an 'intimate' male partner called TK, who he refused to identify. He had shared selfies on the device at the same time as arranging the plot. Harding also used his EncroChat handle to book a table for his family at the Nusr et Steakhouse in Dubai - a creation of internet superstar Nusret 'Salt Bae' Gökçe. The handle was linked with a number ending '9627' which was used to book flights in Harding's name to Dubai and Geneva in Harding's name between 9 February and 4 March 2020. He also booked a Mother's Day meal at a restaurant at the Four Seasons resort in Dubai using the handle and bragged about taking his 'mrs' out to the Zumas Japanese restaurant using the same name. The case formed part of a wider operation targeting criminals who used EncroChat. Detective Chief Inspector Jim Casey, who led the investigation, said: 'This conviction sends a clear message: no matter how sophisticated the methods, criminals cannot hide behind encrypted software. 'This operation dismantled a major supply chain and is a testament to the relentless work of our officers. 'We monitored their drug-dealing activity but then we saw the group discussing the contract killing of a rival. We moved fast to protect those in danger. 'Harding and Kharouti planned to kill, we stopped that and put them before the courts.' Detective Inspector Driss Hayoukane, who oversaw the Met's EncroChat operation, said: 'Thanks to the tenacity and commitment from Met officers, over 500 criminals have been successfully convicted since the EncroChat platform was cracked back in 2020, leading to well over 5,000 years of sentences being handed down to those involved. 'This represents our commitment to combating illegal drug supply, as well as the serious violence that comes with it. 'Our work doesn't stop here - we will continue to pursue those who profit from bringing harm to our communities and will continue to deliver our mission of reducing crime.' Previously, Calvin Crump, 29, of Redhill, Surrey; Khuram Ahmed, 38, of Slough; and Peter Thompson, 61 of south-west London, had admitted the cocaine conspiracy charge with Thompson also pleading guilty to possession of a pistol. A man alleged to have been the proposed hitman was cleared.
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Popular Marrickville restaurant is firebombed TWICE
An arsonist who set a popular restaurant alight two nights in a row is on the run from police. NSW Police on Thursday released footage of the man using fireworks to set fire to a restaurant on Tuohy Lane, off Illawarra Road near Marrickville Station in Sydney 's inner-west, last month. One video shows a masked man lighting a fire in the courtyard of the restaurant on the night of May 29. Another man waited nearby in a Kia sedan and the pair drove from the scene. Arson Unit detectives found the man attacked the same restaurant, this time with fireworks, the following night. 'Just before 1am on Friday 30 May 2025, emergency services were called to Tuohy Lane in Marrickville following reports of a fire in the courtyard of a restaurant,' NSW Police said. 'Initial inquiries revealed accelerant and an explosive device – most likely a firework – was used to light the fire at the restaurant.' The man is described as being of Mediterranean/Middle Eastern appearance, about 185cm tall, and of medium build. He has black, curly, shoulder length hair, and wears glasses.
