While most Greek citizens were busy admiring their sons and daughters at the parades across the country commemorating OXI Day, Greek officials were rushing to the home of Greek Journalist Kostas Vaxevanis to arrest him for publishing the Lagarde List!
Vaxevanis was apparently arrested on the alleged crime of "violating privacy legislation" as a result of today's special issue of his bi-weekly magazine HOT DOC publishing a list of 2,059 names and associated professions of Greek nationals from the client database of HSBC in Switzerland. More information on the revelations can be found at today's NY Times: http://nyti.ms/Rptn9V
The list has recently become a topic of controversy as it was discovered that successive finance ministers and prosecutors have failed to utilize the information to recover any tax revenue or even commence a single official investigation. The fact that the first arrest warrant to arise from the database is for the journalist who was leaked the information exemplifies the corruption and ineptitude that plagues recent Greek administrations.
The database has been in the possession of the Greek government since 2010 after being transferred by then French Finance Minister Christine Lagard to her Greek counterpart in order to assist in recouping lost tax revenue. Several other European governments including France, Spain, and Italy have used the information in the database to recover close to EUR 10 Billion (USD 13 Billion) in much needed revenue as they struggle with tough recessions.
All this while the Greece struggles with conditions of harsh economic depression as a result of EU/IMF imposed austerity that has disproportionately struck the middle and working classes. The list includes -among others- well known business people, journalists, doctors, lawyers, and media figures many of who have declared income that does not justify the amount of money in their HSBC accounts.
At the time of the arrest, he sent this message via twitter:
@KostasVaxevanis They’re coming in the house with a prosecutor now. They are arresting me. SpreadOne hour earlier, he tweeted:
@"There are 15 policemen outside of my home. Let them come in and arrest me like German collaborators.”
Hot Doc said its version of the list matches the one that Christine Lagarde, then the French finance minister and now the head of the International Monetary Fund, had given her Greek counterpart in 2010 to help Greece crack down on rampant tax evasion as it was trying to steady its economy. The 2,059 people on the list are said to have had accounts in a Geneva branch of HSBC.
Two former finance ministers are already being pressed to explain why the government appeared to have taken no action about the list which has been around for some time. The blogger is guessing they didn’t want to expose their own people, possibly friends and party members? No – a daft notion?
Anyway, the subject has touched a very raw nerve among average Greek people at a time when their Parliament is expected to vote on a new 13.5 billion euro austerity package that could further reduce their standards of living drastically. The printing more publicly of the list again is likely to increase Greeks’ anger that their political leaders might have been reluctant to investigate the business elite, with whom they often have close ties, as middle- and lower-class Greeks are struggling with higher taxes and increasingly rough around the edge tax collectors.
Hot Doc was careful to point out (probably for legal reasons alone) that having a Swiss account at HSBC was not illegal or proof of evading Greek taxes – it just so happened that the list they published matched up to one previously that was in relation to supposed possible tax evasion! The magazine did suggest that Greek officials should check whether those on it had moved money into the accounts to escape paying taxes.
Only when the list become more public (and government officials probably suddenly realising they had better do something and be seen to be doing something quick) someone decided to do something. Did they decised to finally, finally investigate the matter? Question anyone on it? Question the bank accounts or any of its officials overseeing the accounts?
No… Hours after the list became more public, Athens prosecutors issued a warrant for the arrest of Kostas Vaxevanis, the owner and editor of Hot Doc, “where names from the Lagarde list have been published,” the Athens police said in a statement on their Web site. They said he was sought on misdemeanor charges; the Greek media reported that the charges were related to violating the privacy of those on the list. They decided to go after those that was just publishing a same list that had been around and available for two years!
Mr. Vaxevanis, one of Greece’s most famous investigative journalists, said he was being wrongly targeted. “Instead of arresting the tax evaders and the ministers who had the list in their hands, they are trying to arrest the truth and free journalism,” he said in a telephone interview that was uploaded on the Internet and widely circulated.
The matter of the list continues to shake the country. It poses new challenges to the fragile three-way coalition government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. Above all, it puts intense pressure on the Socialist party, a key member of the coalition, whose leader, Evangelos Venizelos, is one of two Socialist former finance ministers accused of not having acted on the information. Opps!
The finger pointing and placing blame of previous in-action continues amid parties who are trying to hang on to whatever little support they have left while in government. They are trying to pass the blame/buck on to one another. Meanwhile Greece’s money lenders including the EU big time, have long said that the country must crack down on tax evasion to be eligible for further infusions of cash. With the existence of the list and it being around for at least two years if not more in political circles besides resting going nowhere in investigation offices, it looks like possible tax evasion checking via those on the list wasn’t and still isn’t happening – which is peeing off money lenders to say the least!
Hot Doc says the list includes not only some in the government and businesspeople, but also actors, doctors, lawyers and architects. It also includes several women identified as housewives who the magazine said had moved large amounts of money to the HSBC accounts.
The magazine said it had been given the list by “one of the people who had received” it. The magazine stated it had called a sampling of account holders on its list to confirm that they had deposits in the Swiss bank. Citing privacy concerns for those on the list, Hot Doc said it had carefully redacted how much money was said to be in each account, but did mention that some accounts were listed as containing as much as 500 million euros. The list dates to 2007.
The magazine included a long report on a Mr. Voulgarakis (a former government minister who was investigated but later exonerated in another high-profile corruption inquiry), according to Hot Doc, the parliamentary speaker opened an account at HSBC in 2003 that was jointly managed by him, his wife and an offshore company based in Liberia. Hot Doc pointed out that the deposits do not show up on Mr. Voulgarakis’s tax declarations. Mr. Voulgarakis stated “I declare categorically that neither my wife nor I have any offshore companies or foreign bank accounts.”
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| The photo (above) taken from Hot Doc only show names, and does not refer to the amounts in each account. |
Last week the office of former Prime Minister George Papandreou denied claims that he had been aware of the list, after a member of the opposition Syriza party alleged that Mr. Papandreou had helped set up a meeting with the head of the Geneva HSBC branch in Geneva when he was in office. Former Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou told lawmakers that he had asked Greece’s financial crimes unit to investigate about 20 Greek citizens thought to hold large deposits at the HSBC Geneva branch after French authorities forwarded him the list of names in October 2010.
On the streets of Greece the troubles continue. Many are angry that supposedly, some of the very people that was and is supposed to be looking out for them and caring for them, was in fact while inserting painful cut-backs yet again on the public, also quietly screwing the state system to their own advantage! This is something similar to what a lot of Irish people is saying is happening in Ireland by elected government TD’s and the high wealthy in the state!
The list also contains the names of three former ministers who are decessead and it also contains names of entrepeneurs who have bankrupt their companies.
What is surprising is that it also contains the names of students -who are apparently studying abroad-, as well as (surprise.. surprise) pensioners and housewives!
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