Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, while you read this blog at your desk, looking out at the pouring rain and contemplating turning up the heating, I am sitting on a harbour-side balcony in Crete. And my husband is rolling his eyes because I have just suggested that we take a day trip to Zoniana. It’s a little village, population of a couple of thousand, in the middle of the island. I tried to sell it to him on the “typical Cretan village, nice lunch” basis but he’s on to me: Zoniana is actually the home base of the Parasyris family, one of Crete’s main criminal gangs. You can read about the “drug-dealing shepherds” in this Guardian article from 2008. And the reason I remembered about Zoniana is that the article was printed out and stored in my holiday folder…
Yes, I have form. We once went on holiday to Sicily specifically so that I could visit various mafia sites – the Grand Hotel et Des Palmes in Palermo (where the mafia bigwigs meet each October to decide how to carve up the world between them), the shops with their “Addiopizzo” stickers showing that they are saying goodbye to mafia protection rackets, and – rather gruesomely – the place where anti-mafia investigator Giovanni Falcone and his wife were killed in their car as they left the airport (now renamed after the brave Signor Falcone). And when we were passing through Miami, I insisted on seeing the outside of the Dade County Courthouse, where so many money launderers have appeared over the years. In London recently I saw a poster advertising “Ripper Tours”, so maybe an enterprising former NCIS/SOCA/NCA officer could put together a programme to visit the homes and hangouts of some of our own leading launderers. Sign me up!
I hate money laundering 
Have a fun holiday!
Sounds great, and I doubt the villains are much bothered about tourists.