This Thursday will see a new round of pleas, after the imprisonment of Akis Tsochatzopoulos, Euphrosyne Lampropoulos, Asterios Economides, Nikolaos Zigras and George Sachpatzidis, who allegedly were involved in bribes from two armament programs and the laundering of that money by acquiring – through offshore companies – dozens of luxurious properties.
According to Protothema, investigator Gabriel Malis has already sent plea calls to ten more people facing charges of money laundering and are referred to the findings of prosecutors Eugenia Siskou and Helen Kyvelou.
They are: Akis’ wife Vicky Stamatis, her brother Panagiotis Stamatis, her aunt Aikaterini Stamati, Akis’ daughter Areti, Nikolaos Georgoulakis, Pantelis Zahariadis, Oratios Melas, Konstantinos Antoniadis and Eytyhios Atsopardis.
Stamatis, who is the recipient of the neoclassical house in Dionysiou Areopagitou, has supported in her preliminary plea that the financial aspect was managed exclusively by her husband. Most likely she will follow the same line in her plea before the magistrate.
As for her brother, Panagiotis Stamatis, the prosecutor΄s findings give him an active role in the aesthetic improvement of the house in Dionysiou Areopagitou.
He signs most documents as “Panagiotis Papaliakos,” using the surname of his former wife to conceal that he is the brother of Vicky Stamatis.
At the time, Tsohatzopoulos and his wife did not appear as owners of the property, which occurred in April 2010 when the neoclassical estate became a possession of Vicky Stamatis at the price of 1,100,000 euros.
In the investigation of the two prosecutors, officials found a handwritten statement with the amounts expended to each contractor for renovation in P. Stamatis’ house. These amounts match the amounts deposited in banks or paid in cash, but not those of the information issued in the tax statements.
Among the confiscated findings, there is a manuscript with the gain from avoiding payment of 76,000 euros, which is the equivalent of VAT for work of 560,000 euros. The renovation that lasted about three years, and comes to at least 709,872.50 euros but the supporting documents account only for 149,872 euros.
According to the two prosecutors, “the fact that these documents were issued for considerably smaller amounts demonstrates that Tsochatzopoulos acted as a real owner of the property and not on behalf of another, because then he would not have been interested in participating in the tax stealing of contractors and suppliers in order for himself to have the proportional gain, but he would have made sure that all transactions were done legally and formally, in a way that would ensure his own interests as a tenant and prospective buyer.”
Besides, the housing tenancy agreement was signed between Euphrosyne Lambropoulou, as representative of Nobilis, and Tsochatzopoulos in January 2007. But the seized documents have receipts for renovations from September 2006.
According to the two prosecutors, Stamatis “proceeds to withdrawing from her Emporiki Bank account the amount of 3,000,000 drachmas in one single day in 2001, which had been transferred from an account kept in the Bank of Cyprus by Torcaso, with Zigras as its main recipient and Tsochatzopoulos as the real owner.”
However, “her only income from 1995 is a disability pension received from the German State, amounting to 700 euros.”
The position of Tsochatzopoulos’ daughter, Areti, is also particularly difficult as she is involved in the acquisition of the property in Dinokratous via the Bluebell offshore company.
(source: capital)
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