Elias Eliopoulos

Elias "Elie" Eliopoulos was a Greek smuggler who was, alongside his brothers George and Ananassius (Nassos), one of the most prominent and important organized crime members and drug traffickers of the early 20th century, maintaining connections with the Greek mafia, Corsican mafia, Turkish mafia, Italian-American Mafia, and Italian Mafia. The brothers eventually became known as the Drug Barons of Europe, taking the highest positions in Unione Corse in Marseille and Paris in the 1920's and 30's. Elias Eliopoulos was the head of the family. Their organized narcotics and drugs network spanned the globe, from China to California via Afghanistan, Turkey, London, and New York. Historians suggest that when the Eliopoulos Brothers were at their peak in the 1930's, they were the largest narcotics and drugs network in the entire world. Eliopoulos was made one of the most wanted people by many of the world's leading narcotics bureaus, including the Central Narcotics Bureau of the Egyptian Government, and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), and was especially hunted by Malcolm Delevingne, Harry J. Anslinger, and Russell Pasha. He mentored many of the more famous gangsters that followed, including August Del Gracio, Jacques Voignier, and Paul Carbone. In effect, the Drug Barons of Europe are considered the spiritual grandfathers of Carbone's French Connection.

Early life Elias Eliopoulos was born in Piraeus, Greece, and was the son of a prominent Greek diplomat who was stationed in Turkey for some time.

Criminal empire (c. 1912 – 1943)

Rise Elias Eliopoulos got his start in the world of organized crime by selling weapons to the Greek army during World War I. During the war, he encountered two minor arms dealers in the town of Thessaloniki. The men were by the names of Louis-Théodore Lyon and Carlos Fernández Bácula. In 1918, Eliopoulos "tested the waters in France," and made his first recorded narcotics deal, but shortly afterward wound up in prison for a month.

At the conclusion of the war, Eliopoulos migrated to Paris, where in 1926, he got back into the world of drugs and narcotics. At the height of the Great Depression, Elie Eliopoulos was facing financial difficulties and met with David Gourievidis (also known as David Gourevitch), a Russian émigré who had settled in Greece. Gourievidis took him under his wing and introduced him to the profitability of the drug trade in China, where he claimed to have connections. The two traveled to Tianjin, a key commercial hub in northern China, and later returned with a more ambitious plan.

The famous restauranteur Louis Lyon, however, was wary of a Greek family taking over his town. Before the Eliopoulos brothers got to town, he had designs to become the boss of Paris, in what was only known then as the "Franco-Italian-American" organization. Lyon was a proud Frenchman, and he didn't want a foreigner taking his future empire. But when Elias Eliopoulos managed to secure his sources and establish his manufacturing plants, Lyon's power status was challenged. Within five years, Eliopoulos would be running Paris with a personal net worth of 70 million dollars, dwarfing in global scale the neighborhood gang that Lyon managed, and Lyon would become one of his trusted couriers. In 1930, the Eliopoulos network financed a covert drug laboratory in Turkey. Their trafficking route spanned from Turkey and China to France, and from there to the United States. That same year, authorities intercepted a shipment aboard the SS Alesia from Istanbul to Brooklyn, seizing 17,500 cans labeled “Furs,” each concealing an ounce of morphine. In response, Gourievidis approached the Paris authorities, and news of the network reached the press. The resulting publicity compromised Eliopoulos’s protection from the Paris police.

At the same time, American mobster August "Little Augie" Del Gracio, a known client of the Eliopoulos network, was arrested in Hamburg while receiving a shipment of approximately 250 kilograms (550 pounds) of morphine disguised in machinery parts. The incident appeared to involve a failed double-cross: Del Gracio's shipment had reportedly been diverted and declared stolen, only for him to be approached by an intermediary offering the same quantity of morphine from an identical source. The investigation eventually led police from Del Gracio to a woman in Berlin, and from her to an Afghan national connected to Eliopoulos’s network. Voyatzis had been under surveillance and was intercepted while traveling from China to Greece. British officials in Cairo, alerted to his movements, informed Egyptian authorities. As Voyatzis traveled from Port Said to Alexandria, his baggage, transported separately, was thoroughly searched by Russell Pasha’s narcotics unit. Among his possessions was a small notebook containing encrypted correspondence and detailed information on the trafficking operation. They were convincted in Brooklyn, but were out of prison three months later, their conviction being overturned do to the fact that most of the evidence submitted to the court was beyond the statue of limitations. Nasso managed to evade capture.

Louis Lyon, meanwhile, who had joined the French Resistance, arranged the assassination of his former underling Paul Carbone.