Guilty Findings in Greek Bonds Scandal

Some seven years after it happened, the Felony Appeal courts in Athens trying a structured bonds scandal has found all defendants guilty in an elaborate scheme to rake profits off the state, apart from the former special secretary at the Ministry of Labor Evgenios Papadopoulos. Sentences have yet to be announced. Earlier in February Prosecutor Sofoklis Logothetis requested guilty sentences for the directors of implicated insurance funds – Panagiota Karadima, Agapios Simeoforidis, Panagiotis Demestichas, Gerasimos Konidaris and Konstantinos Christidis, JP Morgan employees Avraam Savvidis and Charalambos Adamopoulos – the representatives of the “Acropolis” brokerage firm G. Apostolidis and Th. Priniotakis, Giorgos Papamarkakis of North Asset Management and N. Bougos of Hypo. The scandal from 2007 involves a 280-million euros structured government bond issued in February that year that was underwritten by JP Morgan. The bonds passed through several brokers before ending up being sold to state-run insurance funds at inflated prices. After the scandal went public, a deal was eventually struck with JP Morgan to buy back the bonds from the funds. The charges against the defendants were; acting in concert to commit fraud; being a direct accomplice to fraud; breach of faith, morally instigating breach of faith; legalizing income from illegal activity; forming a criminal organization; harboring a criminal that had embezzled the state sector; tax evasion; and being a direct accomplice in tax evasion.

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