BUSTED - Officials Bust 12.8mln Euro Insurance Scam - 18 Suspects Charged

After completing its investigation, Greece's Financial Police Directorate discovered a whopper of a scam that resulted in damages to the State as well as to IKA to the tune of approximately 12.8 million Euros. According to an article in To Vima, 18 people suspects are now facing charges of fraud, forgery, violating tax legislation and embezzling funds from the State, (among other charges).

The investigation involved the period between 2010 and 2013. During this period the State and IKA insurance funds suffered grave damages 7.8 and 5 million Euros, respectively.

It looks like the mastermind is a 54-year-old accountant, who appears to have a set up a network of companies that were used to insure employees who were in fact working in other companies. Of course no insurance contribution payments were ever made by these so called companies.

The paper said that authorities also discovered that the companies were not only content with scamming the State and insurance funds, they also didn't pay their employees wages and/or benefits either.

Unfortunately, the employees also lost the insurance stamps they accumulated during their three-year employment with the scammers.