Following an Athens car chase, police on Thursday arrested an Albanian national in possession of over seven kilos of heroin, authorities said yesterday.

Officers patrolling Karaiskaki Square, near the main railway stations for northern and southern Greece, on Thursday afternoon saw Alexander Mari, 35, walking in the area — which is frequented by smugglers who bring drugs into Greece from Albania on long-distance coaches — with a bulky holdall and called on him to submit to a search.

Mari tried to escape by diving into his car and driving off but was eventually run to ground at Pantazopoulou Square in Kolonos. The bag proved to contain 7.5 kilos of heroin, while bank books in the car showed Mari regularly engaged in hefty transactions believed to have been connected with drug trafficking. A raid on Mari’s Petroupolis flat turned up an automatic pistol fitted with a silencer, and ammunition.