Main opposition SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras met on Thursday with the SDOE financial crime squad at the finance ministry. After the meeting, which lasted approximately two hours, the SYRIZA leader issued a statement, accusing the government of allowing the wealthy to get away with tax evasion.

More specifically, the statement stressed that the SYRIZA delegation reached the conclusion  that SDOE is unable to do its job, which is to effectively combat tax evasion, due to delays and the huge problems the squad is facing.

SYRIZA claims that even high-profile cases like the Lagarde list are being investigated at an extremely slow pace, while others are not investigated at all. This, according to the announcement, is the result of a shortage of staff, a lack of basic equipment, lack of funds for overtime pay and travel, as well as confusion and overlapping responsibilities with other agencies.

Regarding the so-called ‘Lagarde list’, which is a list of Greeks with bank accounts in a Swiss branch of HBSC delivered to Greek authorities in 2010, SYRIZA said that since the start of the investigation by SDOE in 2012, only 25 of the 2062 individuals on the list had so far been investigated.