Caroline Crouch’s Greek helicopter pilot husband, Charalambos Anagnostopoulos, ‘smuggled drugs for cartels and may have killed his British wife when she found out’, Greek police fear

The linkage to possible drug smuggling arose only after analysis showed that Anagnostopoulos lived a lavish life, despite earning a pilots salary

Lifestyle sparked fears the helicopter pilot, 33, may have had another income

Anagnostopoulos, 33, is incarcerated after he admitted that he suffocated his wife then staged a violent home invasion

He admitted murdering her in June after weeks of playing the grieving widow

Greek police now fear the 33-year-old helicopter pilot accused and convicted of killing his wife and staging a home invasion may have been smuggling drugs for cartels and killed his British wife when she found out.
After the death of Caroline Crouch, theories of potential drug involvement were sparked after an investigation into the finances of her husband Charalambos Anagnostopoulos revealed he lived a lavish lifestyle, despite earning a pilot’s salary. 
Police officers found the couple had recently paid $64,700 for a plot of land, designed a $193,000 home, and enjoyed an expensive get away to Dubai. 
The find, police said, suggests Anagnostopoulos, aka Babis, may have had an alternative source of income and he killed Caroline when she found out where it came from.  
The 20-year-old mother of one was suffocated to death with a pillow in front of her 11-month-old daughter in the early hours of May 11. 

The victim’s dad, David Crouch, said he believes there was ‘some foundation’ to rumors Babis was involved in drug smuggling.  
David Crouch said he and wife Susan learned of their daughter’s death from neighbors on the Greek island Alonissos.
He said: ‘I’ll never forget how I felt. It was as if an icy hand had reached inside my chest and gripped my heart. It was the worst day of my life.’ 
Babis told investigators his wife had been killed during a violent home invasion where armed burglars had tied him up and suffocated Crouch. 

He later confessed to killing his British wife, telling police he murdered her in a fit of rage after she had ordered him out of the house and demanded a divorce. 
After suffocating her with a pillow, Babis said he ‘panicked’ when he saw she was dead. Once he realized hiding her body was not an option, he staged a fake robbery and killed the couple’s dog because he ‘wanted to raise’ their daughter out of prison.  
Anagnostopoulos, known as Babis, initially told investigators that his wife had been killed during a violent home invasion where armed burglars had tied up husband and wife.

Anagnostopoulos later confessed to killing his British wife, telling police he murdered her in a fit of rage after she had ordered him out of the house and demanded a divorce.
The admittance came after data from Caroline’s smartwatch showed she was in an ‘extreme state of mental or physical stress for six minutes’, and revealed that she did not die at the time Anagnostopoulos had originally claimed.
It also came after weeks of falsely playing a grieving husband, and surrounding himself with Ms Crouch’s family and devastated parents.  
Believing he had got away with the elaborate cover up, Babis even asked her parents to shell out $4,818 [4,000 Euros] – for her coffin.  

‘This man has no shame,’ said Thanassis Haramanis, the lawyer for the Crouch family, said: 
‘First he killed Caroline, then he asked her parents for money to pay for her coffin and to fly her body from Athens for the funeral.
‘They gave him 4,000 euros. He paid nothing.’
Crouch’s parents have since won temporary custody of their granddaughter Lydia and intend to bring her up on Alonnisos.      
Police are also investigating Babis’s claim he murdered his young wife in a fit of rage after she threatened to leave him.   In police his interviews, Babis claimed Caroline was ‘aggressive’, telling police ‘you cannot imagine my love for this girl’. 
He claimed Crouch ‘threw the child in the crib’ and hit him, causing him to lose his temper on the night she was killed. 

But the victim’s diary, which form part of a 26-page police file, paints a picture of a violent, abusive and unhappy marriage, with her vowing to leave him at several points.
The heartbreaking entries told of bitter fights between the pair, with Crouch recalling one where she ‘hit him’ and ‘broke down a door’.
Crouch said she was thinking of leaving the marriage as early as 2019 and that she ‘was not well’ in the relationship.
She first told Babis she would leave him in July 2020, when their baby was a month old, saying she ‘felt and feels miserable’ and she was looking for houses.
In the months before her death, Babis became increasingly controlling, a source said. 
He allegedly installed a tracing app on her phone and accompanied her to therapy sessions.
‘They way she was murdered suggests she was physically and symbolically shut up.’
A lawyer for Eleni Mylonopoulou – described in local media as ‘the couple’s mental health counsellor’ – said Crouch had been looking for an apartment in central Athens in order to leave her husband. 

She wanted to leave in November and find a home near a cooking school she planned to attend reports local paper, tanea.gr. 
Crouch had told her counsellor that she was very afraid of husband and sought advice on how to improve her situation, lawyer Stamatia Markou said.
‘Caroline had revealed from the first moment to my client the fears for her husband,’ the lawyer said.   
Speaking to local media at the weekend, Stamatia Markou, a lawyer for Eleni Mylonopoulou – described in local media as ‘the couple’s mental health counsellor’ – said Crouch had been looking for an apartment in central Athens in order to leave her husband.
The counsellor said that Crouch realized she had made the wrong choice in marrying Anagnostopoulos and was looking for a way out of the relationship.
‘The fear that Caroline felt in her sessions was pervasive,’ she said, adding that Crouch’s counsellor would ensure the door was closed properly so that her husband could not hear what was discussed in their sessions.
Markou went on to say that the couple had ‘many problems’ and that ‘there had been no relationship between them, not even sexual, in recent months.’  

The counsellor said she had urged Crouch to speak to her mother but her patient had refused, saying she did not want to disappoint her own mother.  Adding that Crouch realized she had made the wrong choice in marrying Babis Anagnostopoulos and was looking for a way out of the relationship.
‘She was trying to find ways to get out of the situation,’ Markou said. 
Markou also accused Anagnostopoulos of attempting to ‘blackmail’ the counsellor, saying without elaborating that Mylonopoulou was ‘indirectly blackmailed by the confessed perpetrator.’
‘He went and found her up close. He had the courage! My client made sure she was not alone, precisely because she was afraid of him,’ Markou said.

Mylonopoulou also reportedly received a message from Crouch asking to end the counselling sessions. Markou claimed it was not unlikely that this message had actually been sent by Anagnostopoulos.
Anagnostopoulos is incarcerated at the notorious Korydallos prison. The prison is located on the outskirts of Athens and is the main maximum-security facility in Greece.