According to a dispatch from the state news agency, the suspects are to be detained at the Greek Police headquarters in Athens until their testimony.
Officials claim that the leader of the criminal organisation is the president of the ETEKA petroleum company and president of the Atromitos Athens soccer team George Spanos, together with an employee and an associate of the company who have also been arrested. The arrests were made earlier this week.
Press reports note that about 24 people are involved in this case, 9 of which are still at large.
The same reports claim that the ring was illegally selling fuel on the market, for the past two years, (and estimated that this could be as much as 4.5 million litres of contraband oil). The loss in duties and taxes from this exchange apparently exceeds more than 3.5 million Euros.
The members of the ring, through the company involved in the smuggling, stole marine fuel that was destined for the supplying of ships. With the cooperation of fuel truck drivers. They would withhold a quantity of marine fuel after supplying the ships and then channel this to cooperating fuel stations where they would then mix it with diesel oil and sell it on the market. In many cases they even resold it to the shipowners from whom they had withheld it.
Investigations were carried out at the company's installations as well as at a gas station and this apparently allowed authorities to collect the evidence needed in order to bust the ring. They discovered and confiscated more than 8,000 litres of illegally withheld marine diesel, five fuel trucks and 18,400 Euros in cash.
The suspects are charged with the creation and participation in a criminal organisation, fuel smuggling, fraud, money laundering, bribery and abuse of authority.
Responding to the charges, Mr. Spanos said that the charges against him are stale and groundless and do not even touch him, nor the company that he represents.
In a statement that was published by many online media news outlets, he said that his company contributes greatly to the national economy by more than 300,000,000 Euros paying in taxes, duties and contributions every year to the state, while he employs a staff of well over 150 people.
The Secretary General for Transparency and Human Rights George Sourlas had a difference of opinion. In an interview to the state owned ANA-MPA agency he said that "these are rings that looted public money for decades", stressing that former prime minister Lucas Papademos had also mentioned in Parliament in January 2012 that the Greek state suffered annual losses of one billion euros in revenues, and at least 25 billion over the past 25 years, from fuel smuggling.
"Over the past 15 years three reports had been prepared on how the smuggling is carried out and how it can be handled; however, they were never utilised, Sourlas said.He added that although the issue was not under his jurisdiction now, he had dealt with it for 10 years, since a chemical analysis of the General Chemistry office on fuel at the Fire Brigade came to my knowledge...
"I have submitted 49 files on proven fuel adulteration to both regular Justice and the military and I have never received a reply, for over a year now."
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