The head of the Black Money Laundering Authority, former deputy prosecutor of the Supreme Court, Charalambos Vourliotis, proceeded to freeze bank accounts, bank vaults, shares, assets, etc, members of a circle of companies that, through fictitious tax refunds, caused damage to the Greek State amounting to 13.4 million euros.

Mr. Vourliotis has already forwarded a relevant full-page conclusion to the competent prosecutor in order to investigate a series of criminal acts, such as criminal organization, tax evasion, fraud and money laundering.

According to the Authority, several individuals played the role of “straw man”, while the control carried out by the officials before the return is sometimes characterized as complete and sometimes problematic.

As it became known, these persons acted in an organized manner, through companies they set up in order to get money back from AADE as a tax refund from fictitious transactions.

The unusually high tax refund, which exceeded 4,000,000 euros for the use of a single financial year to specific companies, attracted the interest of the Authority, which launched an investigation that revealed the existence of the scheme.

The Authority traced a number of individuals who allegedly acted in an organized manner and participated in a circuit to pass under the control of ADC, thereby collecting more than €4 million as tax refund, which allegedly emerged as a credit balance from fictitious transactions between them within a single year, while the loss to the Greek State was multiple. And it is multiple, as the amount of the exorbitant tax refund includes the amounts of overdue debts that the controlled companies managed to create as well as VAT and income tax debts for individuals. The final estimated amount recovered is estimated to be at least 13.4 million euros.

The companies involved were newly established with a time limit of December 2023 and were set up with very small capital. That is why they chose to have the same legal form, namely Private Equity Companies (PE).

Another element that attracted the attention of the Authority’s investigation is that although the companies started operations in 2023, they nevertheless had an extremely high turnover, with a limited number of customers and suppliers.

In particular, the tax refund was credited to their accounts on the same day many times and the controlled persons proceeded to withdraw cash or make transfers to third-party accounts.

In addition, all financial and tax statements were signed by a person known to the Authority in the past from other cases.

Ultimately, the companies damaged the State to the tune of €13.4 million as they anticipated and created debts that remain overdue, as well as left unpaid Taxes.