The 49-year-old Ukrainian man accused of killing a 64-year-old hotelier in Rhodes has been located and arrested in Munich.

The “mastermind” of the case, the Ukrainian, organized the killing of the 64-year-old hotelier, setting up a trap that collapsed due to his own mistakes.

The “fateful” message and the wife’s observance

The countdown began on May 1, 2025. At 14:19, Tsiantis’s Belarusian wife receives a message: “Happy birthday, good month, I’m with the company in Lindos, see you this afternoon.”

I’m having a great time, I’ll see you in the afternoon.
The woman immediately suspected evil. Her husband never used punctuation marks in his messages, nor did he have any acquaintances in Lindos, and two days later he reported his disappearance to the police. When the authorities went to the hotelier’s house they found it empty and the security cameras at the entrance were not activated.

The chronicle of the prosecution and the burglaries

Ciantis had “photographed” his killer before he died. In April 2025, he had reported two burglaries at his home to the police, from which 20,000 euros, shotguns and a gold pillar worth 7,500 euros were stolen. The hotelier had named two Ukrainians as the perpetrators, one of whom was the Ukrainian, who already had a heavy past of fraud and illegal transportation of immigrants.

The staging of the “accident”

According to authorities, the crime was committed on the evening of May 1. The last encounter between the victim and the perpetrator took place in a shop in Pastida. Tsiantis did not consume alcohol, which refutes the “drunk driver” scenario.

The fall off the cliff is estimated to have occurred at 11:00 p.m. that night with the perpetrator throwing the hotelier and his motorcycle into the void outside of Pastida to make it appear to be an accident.

The 49-year-old Ukrainian man was found after several days of police investigations to have left the scene in a taxi, with the driver later identifying him in statements. To cover his tracks, he also made a “staged” call on May 7 from a woman’s phone, where, anonymously, the Ukrainian pointed out the location of the motorcycle in an attempt to “close” the case as a traffic accident.

The motive, as in most homicides, is none other than money. Investigations revealed that the perpetrator and the victim had been in an ongoing dispute in recent months over what the 64-year-old should do with the hotel he owned in Kremasti.

The Ukrainian allegedly sought to draw up a false document that would allow him to appropriate the 64-year-old’s property after his death.

As the noose began to tighten more and more around the Ukrainian, the 49-year-old was called to the police, and before appearing before the authorities, he made sure to change his telephone number, thus wanting to hide key evidence in the case.

The Ukrainian, seeing that the police are now one step closer to arresting him on November 13, 2025, left Rhodes by boat and never returned.