Ioannis Rachovitsas

Police Lieutenant General (ret.) - Honorary Deputy Chief of the Hellenic Police – President of the P.A.D.A. - Anti-Drug Action

He was born in 1955 in Fanari, Karditsa, Greece. In 1973 he was admitted to the School of Non-Commissioned Officers of the Hellenic Gendarmerie (Chorofylaki). He is a graduate of the Hellenic Police Officers' School (1979-1982). From 1982 until 1986 he was placed and served in the Security Directorate of Thessaloniki, Greece. He was placed and served in the Sub-Directorate of Drug Prosecution of Attica (1986-2006), Greece, in which he also served as a Director (2003-2006).

He was promoted to Police Brigadier General (March 2006) and served successively as the Police Director in the Police Directorate of Evia (located at the eastern coast of Central Greece) and as General Police Director of the Central Greece. In March 2008, he was promoted to Lieutenant General and served successively as a General Police Director, in Central Greece and in the Hellenic Police Attica Headquarters (G.A.D.A. ; Attikarchis). In November 2009, he was promoted to the rank of Police Lieutenant General and was appointed to the position of Deputy Chief of the Hellenic Police (EL.AS.) until his retirement (October 2011), while he retained the title of Honorary Deputy Chief of the Hellenic Police (EL.AS.). In January 2012, he was hired by the D.E.A. (Drug Enforcement Administration) of the United States of America (U.S.A.), where he provided his experience and services until March 2020. He was trained at the School of Postgraduate Training of the Hellenic Police, at the School of Drug Prosecution Services of the DEA Police Academy (Washington, USA), at the Rhineland Police Academy (Germany) and at various seminars in Greece and abroad.

• He is a graduate of the Department of Criminal and Criminological Sciences of the Law School of the University of Athens.
• He has participated in D.E.A. World Conferences in Europe and in Latin America, in International Conferences of Europol, the European Union and the United Nations.
• From 1993 and for several years, he was a professor at the Police Academy, at the School of Postgraduate Training and Training of Executives and at other training seminars of the Hellenic Police.
• He is one of the executives who founded in 1989 the Union of Officers of the Hellenic Police (EL.AS.) and was active in the procedures of the recognition of the trade union rights of the Police Officers in Greece.
• He participated in special operations of the Hellenic Police (EL.AS.) in Greece and abroad (detection and dismantling of international drug trafficking networks, arrest of Passaris in Romania, head of the operation in Zoniana, Crete, etc.).
• While serving as a Deputy Head of the Hellenic Police (EL.AS.), he created the Force of Control Fast Confrontation Group (D.E.L.T.A.; 2009) and the Teams of Bicycle-mounted Police (DI.AS.; 2010) in Greece.
• He has been married since 1980 and has two daughters.

He has been honored twice with the Andargathia Police Excellence award for outstanding acts of andragathia in armed conflicts with criminals, and with the Police Cross of the Corps for dismantling a transatlantic network of import and trade comprised of tons of cocaine and dozens of tons of drugs in the U.S.A. and Europe as well as dozens of moral rewards.