File photo.
A well-known judo champion, who was not named, was arrested after police found €1.15 million in cash in supermarket bags in his car, prompting an investigation by the Anti‑Narcotics Unit and the Organized Crime Directorate into the money’s origin.
Officers stopped him late Wednesday on the Athens-Corinth highway near Kiato, where the cash was discovered in the trunk and seized.
He told authorities he had traveled from Veria to deliver the money to a fruit‑trading businessman in the Peloponnese, also a former wrestling athlete, claiming the sum came from strawberry sales.
A case file was opened for money laundering and tax evasion.