152 Victims

Behind the strict legal language of the ruling lies an equally harsh reality: the large sums paid by dozens of women who believed they were purchasing legitimate medical services, but in fact were paying for IVF cycles and cryopreserved embryos that, according to the judiciary, often never existed.

Official data shows that for the fake IVF cases alone, 152 victims paid a total of €554,103 in clinic fees and another €184,661 in medication and tests. The total damages amount to €738,764, just for the subgroup examined in detail.

These women were not merely paying for visits or tests. According to records, they paid thousands of euros each time for full IVF cycles, egg retrievals, embryo transfers, cryopreservation of embryos, and “storage” of genetic material supposedly for future attempts.

Financial Exploitation and Fraudulent Practices

In several cases, clinic fees alone exceeded €10,000 per person, with some women paying €15,000, €18,000, or even €35,000 for repeated cycles. These amounts do not include additional costs for medication and specialized tests, which sometimes reached or exceeded €5,000–10,000.

Beyond IVF, the network also ran a surrogacy program, where parents paid €30,000 upfront, another €30,000 upon the first ultrasound detecting the fetal heartbeat — which, according to the investigation, was often falsified — and a further €30,000 at delivery. This basic triad of payments alone could total €90,000 per case, before adding medical procedures, legal fees, and intermediary commissions.

The pregnancy and delivery procedures, excluding medication, cost €29,000–€30,000, with legal fees for file preparation and court approval between €2,000 and €5,000.

Representative Cases

To illustrate the true scale of the financial damage, the ruling highlights several emblematic cases of women who paid exorbitant sums, believing they were undergoing legitimate IVF cycles with material used to create or transfer embryos. These amounts reached tens of thousands of euros, yet no actual medical outcomes were produced.

• One woman paid around €47,000: €35,000 to the clinic for IVF cycles, egg retrievals, and supposed cryopreservation, and €12,000 for medication and tests. Throughout, she was told embryos of “good quality” were ready for transfer or frozen for future use. Upon investigation, none of this was confirmed.
• Another victim’s total loss exceeded €25,000 — €20,000 to the clinic for successive “cycles” and nearly €6,000 for medication. Despite repeated assurances of fertilized material, no embryo for transfer ever existed. The pattern was consistent: every failed cycle came with new promises and new charges.
• A third victim lost approximately €17,300, paying €10,000 for medical services and €7,300 for medication, continually reassured about multiple embryos and “good quality” cryopreserved material that, as judicial research found, never existed. She was charged for multiple cycles throughout the year, without any real medical outcome.

Surrogacy Fees and Exploitation

The surrogacy program was supported by a well-organized intermediary system, with brokers from specific nationalities — including those from a former Soviet state and Romania — receiving one-time fees of between €3,000 and €5,000 for securing each surrogate.

In some cases, an additional €1,000–€3,000 was paid to collaborators recruiting women from Romania, exploiting their vulnerable economic situation.

One intermediary reportedly received a monthly fee of about €300 for supervising each surrogate throughout pregnancy, paid from the parents’ funds. She also received a second monthly payment from the clinic, where she was officially employed as a secretary, effectively creating two income streams from the same source.

Surrogate mothers, often from low-income countries or Greek women in dire financial straits, were paid far less than the parents. From the start of the process until delivery, the monthly compensation promised to women ranged between €583 and €750. For those recruited through the Romanian intermediary, monthly payments were around €1,000, while parents paid €1,300 — the difference going to the organization’s coffers.

Inclusive of Same-Sex Couples

In the post-birth stage, surrogates received one-time payments ranging from €10,000 to €18,000, depending on whether it was a single or twin pregnancy. However, court documents reveal brokers often pressured women to accept lower amounts, exploiting their vulnerable positions. For instance, promises of €15,000 were sometimes substituted with €10,000, with parents misled to believe it was a “better deal.”

A critical indicator of the organization’s control was the use of prepaid cards: intended for surrogate expenses, these cards were controlled and managed by the network’s members, not the women themselves.

The process began with couples seeking children, including single men and same-sex couples, many of whom did not meet legal requirements. Nonetheless, they knew the network could offer a “solution,” as it had developed mechanisms to circumvent legal, ethical, and other barriers. When no eggs were available, the network ordered urgent sourcing of donors to create embryos exactly when needed.

A “Made-to-Order” Mechanism and Exploitation Network

The ruling describes a “made-to-order” egg and embryo mechanism, transforming medically assisted reproduction into a purely commercial operation where human biological material was treated as merchandise.

Central to this network was a recruitment system. Members sourced women from Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Georgia, and Albania — countries marked by economic and social hardship.

By promising relatively small payments, lower than legal limits, women were convinced to travel to Chania to serve as egg donors.

The ruling notes that in many cases, required medical screening was skipped or not properly conducted. False entries were made in the National Egg Donor Registry to conceal repeated egg retrievals from the same women. These eggs were used both for IVF cycles for the intended mothers and for surrogates carrying pregnancies on their behalf.

Prospective parents paid up to €120,000 per case, funds that went straight to the organization’s coffers. The network also developed a parallel recruitment system for surrogate mothers — again, primarily foreign women who left their homes to travel to Chania, where they were housed in properties secured by the group and kept under strict supervision.

The organization controlled its accommodation, provided transport to clinics, collected travel documents, and even supplied new phone lines to monitor communication and movements.

To give the surrogacy process a veneer of legality, the network allegedly prepared and filed fake or falsified documents in courts nationwide to expedite approval, ensuring formal judicial compliance while hiding the illegality of the operations.

Multiple Applications and Dual Roles

The ruling reveals cases where multiple applications were filed by the same couple with different surrogate details. The same woman appeared as a surrogate for different couples in a short timeframe.

Some women recruited as surrogates had previously donated eggs without receiving additional compensation, in stark violation of legal provisions.

Recruitment and Control

Special mention is made of one broker, an essential operational member primarily active in Romania. She identified women through social media ads, targeting those in economic distress — divorced women and mothers of two or more minor children.

After convincing them the process was fully legal, she arranged their transfer and accommodation in Chania, for fees between €1,000 and €3,000, handing them over to the network. These women entered a regime of limited freedom with the promise of a “better future” through the payment they were to receive.

The ruling opens the curtain on a relentless chain of exploitation, where women in extreme vulnerability were reduced to disposable tools for egg production and illegal surrogacy cases.

The daily operation resembled a well-oiled assembly line, incessantly running, driven solely by profit from genetic material sales and completion of unlawful IVF cycles.

Exploitation of Vulnerable Women from Eastern Europe

The network had developed a recruitment reach extending into the most deprived areas of Eastern Europe. Women from Romania, Ukraine, Albania, Georgia, Moldova, and other countries were systematically identified through social media or intermediaries, approached in a way that exploited their urgent financial needs.

Promises were made for decent compensation, without clarifying the illegality, risks, and severe law violations involved.

Once convinced, women were transported to Chania, handed over to the network, and placed under complete dependence. According to the ruling, they were housed in apartments without privacy or freedom of movement.

Travel documents were confiscated to prevent escape or challenge of the process. Some women received shockingly low payments for egg donation — as little as €100 — starkly illustrating the depth of exploitation.

Meanwhile, amounts paid by prospective parents often reached tens or hundreds of thousands of euros, highlighting the vast economic gap between the organization’s profits and the paltry sums given to women.

The Role of Intermediaries

The ruling devotes significant attention to the intermediaries, critical figures in the network paid undisclosed amounts per recruitment. They effectively served as the “entry gate” for the illicit operation.

Simply put, without them, the entire scheme could not function. Descriptions highlight women recruited under promises of inherently illegal commercial transactions — not donations, but sales of eggs, conducted outside the legal framework, with full awareness of blatant law violations by members.

From there, the eggs came under the control of the network, used either for fertilization to enable pregnancy for the intended mother or allocated to surrogates to complete IVF cycles that could never be legally approved.

Simultaneously, the network adapted all illegal actions to align with judicial decisions obtained through falsified or incomplete documents, creating a facade of legality over wholly unlawful procedures.

Legal Perspective and Societal Impact

Speaking to THEMA newspaper, lawyer Liana Togantzi emphasizes that this case is not merely serious but unprecedented in Greek history.

“For the first time, the judiciary confronts such an extensive, multi-layered network exploiting women where human dignity was commodified,” she states.

“My clients are not mere case files. They are women who found themselves utterly powerless, subjected to procedures flagrantly violating legality and every moral boundary. The exposure of this mechanism is not only vindication for the victims but a necessary message to society that such practices cannot remain in the shadows. Justice must protect the most vulnerable.”