Money Laundering in Greece and Zorba(s) the Greek

Don't forget to add detergent!

It can’t be!

The Financial Action Task Force finds that Greece is Non-Compliant with regard to enacting money laundering legislation.

In a detailed report issued in June 2007, the FATF finds that Greece has taken exemplary action to ensure that:

• The Greek independent Authority for money laundering has no human or other resources, as it only employs 3 people when the law spoke of up to 50; it is underfunded; and it is under-equipped.
• the Authority is not independent at all since it is managed by high ranking employees of certain ministries.

The FATF also finds that laundered money is not $1.6 billion per year as Greece reports, but much higher.

So what did the government do about it since then? Let’s take a look…

Last year, the government covered up a scandal of huge proportions, where the public was taken into a scam in the magnitude of €280 million in state bonds.

The government said it’s up to the judicial to find the culprits. Mr Zorbas, a public official who was the only one determined to uncover the truth, got into a clash with the government and was summarilly forced into early retirement from the judicial and was placed as head of the committe for black money.

To make things worse, now that the Siemens scandal is raging as who how much money the two leading parties had received from the megacorporation in exchange for public projects, Zorbas owed the government one.

So, in his new position he started digging.

And what did the government do when he found something?

They created a bill that was voted into law the same day (a procedure that normally takes months or years) that disbanded the committe effective immediately and ruled out retired public officials from being chosen to participate in the new committee whenever it might be formed, effectively keeping Mr Zorbas out of reach of sensitive information that might damage any of the two leading political parties.

Mr Zorbas makes us proud. Corrupt governments do not.

Judge purged for being honest

Maria Margariti, a former judge, has been purged from her position in the judiciary after trying to bring to light how funds for post-eartquake reconstruction were stolen, and how a small room in the courthouse is being used to traffic women and children.

Ironically, the plaque on the room’s door reads “children protection services”.

When she tried to protest outside the PM’s house and decided to start a hunger strike in order to be heard, she was taken to a police station by plain-clothes police officers.

The Justice Ministry made no comment, and the President of Democracy (a very fair figure in the country’s politics) is said to have agreed to examine her case, but after so many months of waiting, we’ve still not heard from her.

What makes this case bizzarre is that this news was only picked up by the BBC and no Greek channel, big or small, ever made a single reference to Judge Maria Margariti.

Do I smell a cover-up?

Judge for yourself on YouTube.

Cadastre-ophy

In 2006, Greece was the only EU country without a Cadastre (national land plan).

The reason is that past governments misappropriated (I’m bad at spelling, is that spelt “s-t-o-l-e”?) the EU funds for this project and now the EU is not going to fund us again.

So, what does the government do? Does it launch an inquiry as to where that money is now and create a plan as to how to get it back? No, of course not.

What they do is “self-finance” the project. And by “self” I mean asking each owner €35 per property in order to register it. And if you forget to register your real estate, the fines are in the thousands of euros per case.

Let me check my world fact book for other countries where the government has asked its people for a special tax for a project that had already been financed. Nope, none.

Again, a first for Greece.

Pssst… Wanna start a business in Greece?

Worldwide, 4 of 5 businesses fail in the first five years.

In Greece, that same percentage is 9 out of 10. The ratio might not look all that different, but what it really says is that a business is twice as possible to succeed if it’s not based in Greece.

In the US, a friend founded a company by sending a fax and payment with Paypal. In Greece, it’s a process that takes up to 180 days. [1]

As for what follows, what can I say? You’re at the mercy of every authority that will want to ‘check up on you’, from corrupt taxmen who can order you to stop doing business for weeks while they check your books to any single licence-issuing organisation that may not want to issue you a licence for something that they think that you should not be doing.

Do we still wonder why Greeks abroad make so much money and only visit the homeland once every few years? Others call it Diaspora, but it’s nothing short of a Brain Drain.

The Siemens Case

Siemens has been bribing Greek MPs.

What a shock!

The German tax authorities spilled the beans and now we’re still looking for who got what.

The PM comes out to say that “we” have faith in the justice system. Do we? I thought faith was required for things that did not have a physical and organising way of presenting themselves. Or am I just reading between the li(n)es here?

The Press Secretary comes out to say he does not comment on “rumours” about a minister of his government to have travelled to Germany on Siemens expenses. I really have to admit that the Press Secretary is probably the smartest guy in the cabinet, I kid you not.

An MP for the opposition party came out to say he had received a one-off payment of 1 million deutsch marks (€0.5 million) back in the day, which he transferred to his party.

The main defendant in this case, the man that used to run the “money under the table” project for Siemens in Germany, said he paid no less than €5 million a year.

From €5 million a year, we only know what happened to a one-off payment of half a million?

And this is just one company that we happenned to hear about. Imagine how much money we would be talking about if we examined all suppliers for the public sector ever!

Is there a bookmaker that would be willing to accept a wager that no-one will be found guilty for bribery?