Word: banker
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...Koskotas accusations are extraordinary, though difficult to verify. In six lengthy prison interviews with TIME, the banker describes a Socialist government riddled by extortion and criminality. Koskotas charges that millions of dollars missing from his bank were actually payoffs that went directly to the head of the government, Andreas Papandreou, and PASOK officials. The Prime Minister, says the banker, personally authorized the plan to loot the Bank of Crete. Koskotas describes as well his own illegal complicity in the huge swindle, one that involves enormous sums hard to account for adequately...
...past year, says Koskotas, some 40 shipments of money, in blue briefcases stuffed with 5,000-drachma notes, were carted out of the Bank of Crete and taken first to his own residence. There the banker handed the money over to a Papandreou confidant, Georgios Louvaris, who Koskotas says made the deliveries to the Prime Minister. Pickups occurred weekly and amounted over the year to more than 3 billion drachmas ($20 million at today's rates). In addition, Koskotas claims he personally carried a total of half a billion drachmas ($3.3 million) to the home of a Deputy Prime Minister...
...audits of the Bank of Crete that might have uncovered the scheme were squelched over the years by PASOK officials, says Koskotas, twice by direct calls from Papandreou. In the summer of 1988, the government muscled through a special Secrecy Act that had the effect of guaranteeing its overdrawn banker financial confidentiality. Koskotas says he was directed to pay an additional $2 million to then Deputy Prime Minister Koutsogiorgas as a reward for managing the legislation...
...dank atmosphere that nurtured this tangle of alleged corruption began after the Socialists' re-election in 1985. Papandreou was eager to tighten his grip on the country. He found a perfect match in the ambitious young publisher and banker Koskotas, who saw in PASOK a means to build an empire...
...although some investors participate in `unfriendly' LBOs in which the takeover is made without the backing of management, Harvard is "not going to be involved in unfriendly deals because they'll loathe the publicity," says the investment banker...