Here is the story of Konstantinos “Kosta” Diamantis, an official in Connecticut who recently fled the United States to Greece. The story of how he did it needs explanation for me.
He drove to Florida.
He took a boat (legally?) to Bermuda.
He flew to London.
I suppose he took the train to Athens.
So I suppose the idea was to not exit the US with your passport. I suppose they have a bad-boy list and would arrest you if you tried a more straightforward escape Am I right on this point.
He took a boat to Bermuda. Perhaps he had to bribe someone for this leg with no formalities.
He must show his documents to enter and exit Bermuda. But it is possible the local authorities do not have that same list US officials have?
He had to show his papers to enter and leave both the UK and the Schengen Area, but the same might apply.
Then what? Greece refuses to ship back Americans upon request?
It was the Bahamas, which may not make any difference to your questions, but The Bahamas are a lot closer to US territory, and so a much smaller boat would work, one which might consider it a “local” trip and not formally ask for documents, but I don’t know.
His documents at that point seemed to be a Greek passport, as he had surrendered his US passport.
Up to now, according to the linked article, Greek courts have forbidden their government to extradite Greek citizens.
Of course he is. But he was smarter to run, he probably doesn’t have enough money to buy a pardon.
I’m confused, though, because he was accusing the state governor of weaponizing the justice system against him, and he was a senior budget official for the governor’s office. He was accused and convicted of extorting money from contractors for state contracts. I know nothing about the law, why is this a federal-level trial rather than state-level? And since it is federal, does it make any sense for him to accuse the governor that way, or is/was he just flailing?
Presumably, if his name was on a fugitive or wanted list, then using his Greek passport, or any ID document, at an American airport, could have made his name pop up and get him arrested.
Just commenting on this part. While it’s possible to travel from London to Athens by train, I’d think it’s unlikely that that’s what he did. He’d first have to take the Eurostar from London through the channel tunnel to a city on the European continent, such as Paris or Brussels; but the Eurostar operates in a planes-like manner, with check-ins and gates and security screening at the departure station, so it wouldn’t offer much in terms of anonymity over a flight. Once he’s on the continent, there wouldn’t be further such checks, as you can generally just board trains in Europe without any kind of security screening or check-in. But it’d still be a hell of a journey to go from Paris or Brussels to Athens by train. It would definitely take you several connections and at least 24 hours.
I don’t know if the US has such a list. The order to surrender the passport and not leave the country probably is from the court and I don’t know how well they coordinate with border patrol.
From my understanding, the US does do as many checks on people leaving the US, but perhaps they can get data from the airlines.
As was said said up thread, it may be that he got someone to take him illegally. That could have given him enough time to fly to the UK and then on to Greece before his name would have been sent to Interpol.