Police arrest woman for holding up banks with ‘threatening note’

Police in northern Greece have arrested a 41-year-old woman accused of using a “threatening note” to rob two banks in the country's second-largest city.

Police say that the Greek woman walked out of the banks in Thessaloniki with a total of 30,840 euros ($35,000), using a note that claimed she had two armed accomplices standing outside the building.

She was due to be formally charged with robbery later Tuesday after telling police she was a divorced mother of a teenage boy and had a fish wholesale business that was more than 50,000 euros in debt.

Small business owners have been hammered by the Greek financial crisis that started in late 2009 and caused a surge in poverty and unemployment.

[AP]