instrument of crime­busting when a police helicopter that accompanied its airplane landing on the island of Crete spotted cannabis farms on July 14. 'The police helicopter was accompanying the flame on its journey, patrolling the skies above the actual torch relay route, when they spotted a cannabis farm near the town of Rethymnon, ' said the ministry of public order. 'They decided to stay and investigate, and eventually spotted other farms in remote areas outside the towns of Heraklion and Rethymnon with a total of around 7,000 cannabis plants, which is quite a good haul.' Now in the last phase of its tour around host-country Greece, the torch's $45 million journey around the world has had all the hallmarks of a presidential tour, with security surveillance, motorcades, movie stars, cheering crowds and a specially chartered jumbo jet, appropriately dubbed 'Zeus,' after the supreme deity of the ancient Greek pantheon, in whose honour the ancient Olympics were held every four years at the central Peloponnese town of Olympia,for more than a millennium since their opening in 776 BC.

Dimitris Yannopoulos

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