Vassilis Palaiokostas

On the afternoon of Sunday 4 June, two accomplices hired a trip on a sight-seeing helicopter from Agios Kosmas, a coastal suburb of Athens. They hijacked the helicopter using a pistol and hand grenade, and forced the pilot to fly to the prison.[7] When the helicopter arrived, guards believed the helicopter was a visit from prison inspectors.[8][9] The helicopter flew the prisoners to a cemetery nearby, where they transferred to motorcycles and fled from there.

Palaiokostas was re-captured two years later, on August 2, 2008,[3] in Thessaloniki.

On the afternoon of Sunday 22 February, Palaiokostas again escaped from Athens' Korydallos Prison by helicopter.[10] He and his cellmate Alket Rizai, 34, climbed a rope ladder thrown to them by a female passenger in the helicopter as it flew over the prison courtyard. Guards on the ground opened fire and the woman fired back with an automatic rifle. No injuries were reported due to the short gun fight, although one prison guard injured himself while trying to pull out his gun.[11]

Police said an elderly couple found the helicopter abandoned in the Athenian suburb of Kapandriti near a highway north of Athens, with its fuel tank leaking from a bullet hole.

The pilot was bound and gagged, with a hood over his head. He told police the helicopter was chartered by a couple who said they wanted to go from the town of Itea in central Greece to Athens. The couple had chartered the helicopter a number of times in the previous weeks, with the woman posing as a business woman. According to the pilot, who claimed to have been forced into taking part in the escape, Palaiokostas and Rizai were delivered to a getaway car.[12]

The government of Greece faced intense criticism after his second escape from the same facility, and the government responded by firing three justice ministry officials and arresting three prison guards.[13]

Palaiokostas is still at large with a one-million euro bounty placed on him for information leading to his arrest.[14] His accomplice Alket Rizai was re-arrested in November 2009.[15]