2023-08-10 07:28:51
September 25, 2023 has been set for the trial before the Five-member Court of Appeal of the Dodecanese of the appeals brought by three residents of Karpathos in December 2019 for the annulment of the decision of the Three-member Court of Appeal of the Dodecanese on felonies by which they were found guilty with mitigating circumstances, money laundering and they were sentenced to 6 years in prison.
The defendants were involved in the high-profile case of money laundering, specifically money that had been embezzled from foreign banks by tampering with secure money transfer systems that ended up in their accounts to repay non-existent investments.
The three Karpathians were found not guilty at first instance of moral authorship in forgery from which the financial benefit and the damage caused exceed the amount of 120,000 euros.
The court, by its previous decision, postponed the case so that, under the supervision of the Dodecanese Prosecutor’s Office, a request would be submitted to the Italian judicial authorities (Milan) to inform whether the case has been prosecuted there and what is its fate.
The reason for taking this decision was an objection submitted by the defendants’ lawyer Mr. Panagiotis Avrithis for the suspension of the prosecution against his principals due to the statute of limitations.
In a similar “Carbon” case, the same court had reached such a decision as it had been judged that since the main crime was committed in Italy and the threatened sentence cannot exceed 3 years according to the law there, the Greek courts cannot sentence to greater penalty, reducing the offense to a misdemeanor and becoming statute-barred.
The request was forwarded and the case is reportedly now ripe for trial.
The history of the case, which was revealed in its entirety by “demokratiki”, is said to be summarized as follows:
At the beginning of November 2007, at the offices of the company AURORA ASSICURAZIONI SPA based in San Donato, Italy, which has as its object the insurance industry, a debit was found to the current account of the amount of 1,523,402 euros in execution of a transfer order from abroad. The UNIPOL BANCA SPA branch forwarded a copy of a bank transfer order dated 29.10.2007 with apparent origin from the user AURORA ASSICURAZIONI SPA as proof of the transaction carried out. The order in question was signed by the general manager and ordered a transfer to an account at the Agricultural Bank of Karpathos in favor of the first defendant.
According to the Italian Bank, the fax was sent after a phone call received by the deputy director, in which an employee allegedly of the company AURORA ASSICURAZIONI SPA announced the sending of the bank transfer order.
The order bore a forged signature of the general manager of AURORA ASSICURAZIONI SPA Although the number of the fax was shown as the sending number of the company AURORA ASSICURAZIONI SPA, it had not been sent by the latter’s fax machine.
It is alleged to have further emerged that the first accused had opened the account a few months back.
The money was deposited into his account and on the same day he took over most of the amount, namely 1,520,000 euros in cash from the branch of the Agricultural Bank in Karpathos.
Subsequently, the above amount came into the hands of the second defendant and the latter on 02.11.2007 deposited an amount of 300,000 euros in an account she held at Emporiki Bank from which on 21.11.2007 she took over an amount of 170,000 euros. He also made other withdrawals and deposits into third party accounts.
Parallel to the above and with exactly the same practice but this time with defrauded companies POVITA COMPAGNIA DI ASSICURAZIONI SPA and the Italian Bank BANCA POPOLARE FRIULANDRIA SPA the third defendant collected money that had been embezzled into his account.
More specifically, the bank BANCA POPOLARE FRIULANDRIA SPA received forged transfer orders of the amount of 3,316,703 euros in favor of the third party at the Karpathos branch of the Agricultural Bank on the grounds of the sale of real estate pursuant to the private agreement dated 07.12.2007 for partial payment of a total price of 4,316,703 euros.
On 17.12.2007 the money was deposited into an account he maintained at the Bank in question and on 18.12.2007 he collected in cash the amount of 40,000 euros from the Karpathos branch and the amount of 3,200,000 euros from the main branch of the Agricultural Bank in Athens.
Subsequently, he transferred the amount of 3,226,703 euros to an Italian citizen, while allegedly knowing that it came from criminal activity.
The defendants claim that they were cheated by mobsters with an alleged purchase of their properties and that the money was transferred for this purpose and then the real perpetrators backed out of the purchases and demanded that the money be returned to them.
#notorious #money #laundering #case #revived