More than 130 names of of Greek interest are included in the so-called Paradise Papers, a set of 13.4 million documents relating to offshore investment, leaked to the public on 5 November 2017.
Shipowners, politicians and one bank executive are linked to offshore companies included in the files of offshore law firm Appleby.
Among the Greek names are people linked to politicians and a big number of shipowners who usually use offshore companies for their fleets but also in order to lower their tax burdens.
According to CNN Greece, the leaked files contain also offshore companies that took loans from Greek banks,, an executive who participated in offshore fund as well as Greek with whom authorities have dealt with over taxation and other issues.
In 6.5million leaked Paradise Papers documents, 5,553 refer to Greece.
252 contact addresses are located in Greece, with the majority of them being geographically located in Attica, mostly in Athens and Piraeus. The addresses are in the suburbs: Ekali, Politeia, Dionysos, Paleo and Neo Faliro, Maroussi, Glyfada, Agia Paraskevi, Kifissia, Vouliagmeni, Voula, Elliniko, Chalandri, Alimos, Vrilissia, Psychiko, Nea Erythraia and Vyronas.
It is not illegal to have an offshore – unless you are a politician. it is not illegal to have an offshore, but tax evasion in a country where millions of people live below the poverty line because some smart guys think tax evasion is their privilege?
PS No worries, the names: Queen Elizabeth, Bono and 3 former Canadian Prime Ministers are among the 120,00o names mention in the Paradise Papers.
As has been known for a long time, the rich (with some exceptions, like the Queen of England) get rich by not paying taxes and remain rich by not paying taxes. They also get higher interest rates on their investments, while those of us with modest savings in a bank get below the inflation rate — and feel lucky that the money is not yet stolen from us.
Of course, the solution to the problem is well known and has been touted for decades: make it illegal to hold offshore bank accounts, unless they are needed for specific business transactions like shipping. This has been resisted for decades by politicians of all parties and the world’s billlionaires and multimillionaires, who have all benefited massively from the global banking crisis while everyone else is floundering.
Essentially, democracy has failed: it has been hijacked by the stinking rich, with that fat oaf Trump just being one of the most obvious. In this context, the small amounts embezzled by Tsochatzopoulos are trivial and he is just a scapegoat, so that the politicians and judges can pretend to have done something.