Crime and safety in Agios Panteleimonas
Άγιος Παντελεήμονας · District
Modelled estimate — how it is madeBy type of crime
- 9Overall safety
- 15Property crime
- 4Violent crime
Agios Panteleimonas scores 9 out of 100 (modelled estimate, Eurostat 2021–2024) for overall safety — high crime, on a scale where 50 is the average for Greece. Agios Panteleimonas has no police figures of its own. Its estimate starts from Athens's rate — Athens scores 25 for overall safety — and is adjusted for documented local reporting about Agios Panteleimonas. An estimated 15,013 people live there: the 2021 census counts the surrounding community as a whole, and this is its share by area.
The score is absolute, not a ranking: 50 is the offence rate of Greece as a whole and every doubling of the rate costs the same points, so any two places compare directly. How the scores are made
Updated · police figures: Eurostat 2021–2024 · What's new
What Agios Panteleimonas is actually like
A dense 1960s apartment district around the big church on Acharnon, minutes from Victoria and Attiki metro. Middle-class once, it emptied from the 1980s; the church runs a daily soup kitchen and the square has working cafes and a playground. It also names the police division covering Victoria, Attiki, Agios Nikolaos and Amerikis, so it absorbs their statistics as well as its own.
After dark
The square and Acharnon stay busy until shops close, then thin quickly; small-scale dealing, drinking groups and the odd teenage confrontation move onto the benches and the darker side streets.
What to watch for
- Chain-snatching from the neck — the Agios Panteleimonas police division logged 36 cases and 10 arrests in 2026, second only to Omonia
- Street dealing on the square itself: police describe sellers approaching passers-by and hiding drugs under parked cars, in storm drains and in their shoes
- Group knife attacks involving teenagers — a 17-year-old was stabbed by five or six assailants outside a school at Lelas Karagianni 23 on 4 March 2026
- Shuttered, poorly lit stretches of Agiou Meletiou after dark
Staying here
Do not book here. Rates are low and the metro is close, but there is nothing for a visitor and the late walk in from Victoria or Attiki is precisely the walk the police operations plan is written about.
Reputation against reality. The 2008-2012 image — a square blockaded by a self-appointed 'residents' committee' fronting Golden Dawn, a padlocked playground — is out of date. The playground and square cafes have worked normally since municipal works around 2018, and local shopkeepers argue the name now carries crime that happens in neighbouring Victoria and Agios Nikolaos. The present problem is ordinary street crime, not organised racist patrols.
Streets and squares: Acharnon · Agiou Meletiou · Lelas Karagianni · Plateia Agiou Panteleimona · Neofytou Metaxa
Sources
- Protothema: Hellenic Police plan for chain-snatchers, pickpockets and drugs in central Athens (20 Sep 2026)
- iefimerida: the Hellenic Police special plan for petty crime in central Athens (20 Sep 2026)
- enikos: 14 arrests over drug dealing on an Agios Panteleimonas square
- Ta Nea: pupil stabbed outside school in Agios Panteleimonas (4 Mar 2026)
- Athens Voice: everyday life in Agios Panteleimonas
- Newsbeast: what the Agios Panteleimonas area looks like now
- Anoihti Poli: Agios Panteleimonas - Attiki - Stathmos Larisis neighbourhood profile
Other neighbourhoods in Athens
Nearby municipalities
Questions people ask
Is Agios Panteleimonas safe?+
SafetyMap estimates Agios Panteleimonas (Άγιος Παντελεήμονας) at 9 out of 100 for overall safety — high crime, on a scale where 50 is the Greek average. It is a modelled estimate, not a count of crimes recorded there: it comes from the estimate for Athens, adjusted for documented local reporting about Agios Panteleimonas; there are no police figures for Agios Panteleimonas itself. As a rate, the estimate comes to roughly 3,400 property and 400 violent offences per 100,000 residents a year. The written notes on this page class it as “Fine by day, care after dark”.
Is Agios Panteleimonas safe at night?+
The square and Acharnon stay busy until shops close, then thin quickly; small-scale dealing, drinking groups and the odd teenage confrontation move onto the benches and the darker side streets.
How does Agios Panteleimonas compare with the rest of Athens?+
Agios Panteleimonas has no police figures of its own. Its estimate starts from Athens's rate — Athens scores 25 for overall safety — and is adjusted for documented local reporting about Agios Panteleimonas.