Greek justice continues looking into corruption

Corrupt arms deals

The deposition of jailed former director for procurements Antonis Kantas opened a whole can of worms which led judicial authorities to seek further arrests and inquiries into a number of top Greek businessmen, military officers, foreign arms manufacturer reps. Among those Kantas named as bribing him are Thomas Liakounakos for the purchase of Leopard II MBTs, Panos Efstathiou for the submarine combat suites made by STN ATLAS, the Type 214 subs, and the ASRAD close air defense systems, and Constantin Dafermos of SCORPION who represented Russian made systems.

The deposition of jailed former director for procurements Antonis Kantas opened a whole can of worms which led judicial authorities to seek further arrests and inquiries into a number of top Greek businessmen, military officers, foreign arms manufacturer reps

He also mentioned Christos Houbavlis, representative of DASSAULT, whom he never met but whose company, through another member, paid him off for the MIRAGE 2000-5 fighter program.

Eighty two year old weapon system representative Panos Efstathiou, in his deposition, named more names. Among those Mr Efstathiou named were deceased former Navy chief Georgios Theodoroulakis, and former Army chief Kostantinos Panayotakis, along with a number of lesser known individuals.

In any event revelations are ongoing and will continue, with more depositions that will hopefully unravel even more of the sordid ball of string.

Hellenic Postbank

Meanwhile, more recently prosecutors issued at least 10 arrest warrants were issued last Wednesday for Hellenic Postbank executives. The warrants were issued in connection with suspect loans worth more than 400 million euros given by Hellenic Postbank between 2006-2011. Justice is charging several Greek and Cypriot businessmen, former CEOs and other staff of Hellenic Postbank following a probe into the loans on charges of money laundering and fraud.

Arrest warrants involve the owner of Alpha TV, Dimitris Kontominas, former postbank alternate general manager, Marios Varotsis, former Network General Manager, Haralambos Liagoudis, former CEOs Angelos Filippidis and Kleon Papadopoulos, businessman Kyriakos Griveas and his wife, Anastasia Vatsika, Cypriot shipowner Michalis Ellinas and General Manager of the bank, Harris Siganos.

The Lagarde List

Meanwhile, supreme court prosecution is looking into the case of former finance minister Giorgos Papakonstantinou for his handling of the so-called Lagarde List. the list contained around 1500 names of Greeks that sequestered money in foreign banks relative to the crisis, and was given by Ms Lagarde to the Greek finance ministry, when she held the post of finance minister of France.

The inquiry will also include the former heads of the financial crimes squad (SDOE) Ioannis Diotis and Yannis Kapeleris, as well as the minister's cousin Eleni Papakonstantinou, her husband Symeon Sikiaridis (whose names mysteriously vanished from the list), and Andreas Rosinis. Already the door is open to send Mr. Papakonstantinou to the Special Court after a unanimous decision of that body.

Miscellaneous misdeeds

Other conspicuous cases, involved more modest sums but were conspicuous because of the persons involved, their positions, and the nature of the incidents of corruption, in some cases bordering on the farcical.

One such case was that of former New Democracy minister, and former major party cadre, Mihalis Liapis for a series of misdeeds like driving with false license plates to avoid paying road taxes and insurance, using EU funding destined for tourism development to refurbish a family chalet, and now falsification of data to public power provider DEH in order to avoid property taxes and municipal dues.

Another high profile case of graft was that of the president of Aglaia Kyriakou Athens General Children's Hospital who was arrested on charges of blackmail and accepting bribes. Haris Tobouloglou, was charged with demanding a 25,000 euro bribe from an advertising company which had won a bid at the state hospital before he would approve the final contract.

After years of lethargy, Greek justice has been kicked into overdrive making strides that make many believe that 2014 will be a year when Greece will learn a lot more about how corruption has poisoned it system.