Nancy crossed the threshold of the investigating magistrate to enter a plea, accused along with five other people as members of a circle that operated in Athens and other areas, blackmailing restaurant owners to give them money to avoid having violations certified by the municipal police.

The six accused allegedly played a leading role in the circle, which authorities tracked down after a complaint from a businessman. Yesterday, eight of the accused were brought to the courts of the former Evelpidon school to plead, with the investigator and prosecutor, after a marathon procedure, taking two of them into custody and releasing the remaining six on the condition that they are restricted from leaving the country and appearing at a police station.

The defendants are facing seven felonies and two misdemeanors, which, among other things, involve forming and joining a criminal organization, extortion by threatening and damaging a business in the course of their profession, jointly and severally, bribery of an employee in the course of his employment, in concert with others, and false certification for an amount exceeding 120.000 euros.

The case was solved by the Internal Affairs Service of the National Police, which after an investigation uncovered the multi-member gang of private individuals, municipal officials and employees of other public services.

In particular, from listening to the telephone conversations of the 14 arrested, it emerged that members of the organization had been recruited for the organization, members from public services, as well as from the Service of Modern Monuments of the Ministry of Culture. Two of those involved, who worked in the Ministry of Culture, were members of PASOK and their party status has already been suspended. The authorities’ investigations are continuing for the arrest of nine more persons.

How the organization was “unmasked”

“The situation has reached the breaking point,” the businessman from central Athens wrote in his complaint in April, describing a lady who introduces herself as Nancy, who tells shopkeepers she can mediate so that their business is not sealed, but it is understood that she does so without compensation. Investigations revealed that 43-year-old Nancy, appearing before the magistrate today with the other seven co-defendants, played a leading role in the organisation. The accused, originally from Patras, who had been arrested twice more in the past for committing felonies, coordinated the ring with her mother and brother being her confidants in safeguarding the black money. Specifically, the defendant’s brother would receive the money from the shopkeepers and then hide it in their mother’s house. Some other amounts were distributed to the civil servants and members of the organization.

In cases where shopkeepers and hoteliers did not agree to join the organization’s protection, their managers threatened that their businesses would be re-inspected and that they would be charged with offenses. The bribes to public officials were either made outdoors, to appear random, or in enclosed areas where it would be impossible to see them, such as in shop toilets and cars, and they kept watch for any “suspicious” people.

“I first came into contact with them in ’17 or ’16. An acquaintance of mine introduced me to her (Nancy) and said I have a person who can give you a solution. This has been going on for ten years, I know it works, from then on it is a necessary evil,” said a businessman who had fallen victim to the ring and the 43-year-old woman, speaking to the television station Ant1 and referring to the amounts of money that the members of the ring were asking for from the businessmen, he said that “for the shops, it was around two to three thousand euros for the license of each shop, for the hotels it goes away, 10,000 – 15,000 euros.” He noted that he had given the 43-year-old woman more than 120,000 euros. “You can not play the scenario that you can not, you will have bad sanctions, it does not play, you will cut fines, then go to the fine and pay it did another acquaintance of mine, which seemed a lot of 2,500 and finally paid 5,000 euros, “he also stressed.