Did The Greek Finance Minister Tamper With Evidence?

Posted by Ken Brielly on Jan 7th, 2013 | Comments Off

The former Greek finance minister and negotiator of Greece’s bail-out has been found to be at centre of the largest tax-evasion scandal in Greece. Whilst many locals in Greece were struggling to keep up their finances, and many were busy filling out personal loan paperwork. Elsewhere, in 2010, Papaconstantinou got his hands on a list of over two thousand Greeks all of whom had bank accounts in Switzerland. At the time, the time he got this; the finance minister should have passed the information onto the appropriate authorities.

Instead, though he kept the list and took it upon himself to personally delete the names of 3 of his family members before he transferred the file to a computer memory stick. An investigation that was planned was dropped and Mr. Papaconstantinou never gave any formal instructions to the financial police or two directors of the SDOE, as to how to further proceed with the sensitive matter.

Now though, there is a full-blown investigation being held and Mr. Papaconstantinou faces having his immunity from prosecution as a former minister because of the nature of the charges, that he faked documents and did not carry out his financial responsibilities.

The minister said that he did not play around with the list or file and that others who have failed to make sure that the people are on the list are possible tax evaders should be investigated, and that they made him a scapegoat.

The Pan Hellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok) has expelled him and his former boss, George Papandreou, has disowned him. Papandreou is a former leader of Pasok and a former prime minister.

In addition to Mr. Papaconstantinou, leader of Pasok and the successor to Mr. Papaconstantinou as finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos may also face an enquiry if left to decide by the main opposition party, Syriza. The party claims that Venizelos kept the disk in his desk drawer for more than a year before he sent it to the Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras. This was a day after the current finance minister, Yannis Stournaras, asked for another copy of the disk from Paris in order to clear up the situation.

A Greek investigative magazine was able to get a hold of the list which is now in the hands of a financial prosecutor and contains names of the professional elite and internationally educated people in Greece. On it are members of Mr. Papaconstantinou’s family, such as Eleni Papaconstantinou, an advisor to TAIPED and a corporate lawyer trained at Harvard, and her husband. The husband of Eleni Papaconstantinou’s sister is also on the list.

The Prime Minister has promised that tax evaders will receive swift retribution, and everyone involved will be prosecuted.

About Ken Brielly

Ken writes for Quick Loan 101, a Singapore licensed moneylender. He likes to blog about personal loans, finance, and debt consolidation.

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