Word: cretes
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...charges came from George Koskotas, 34, imprisoned owner of the Bank of Crete and onetime crony of the ruling elite of the Socialist Party (PASOK). Koskotas, now a fugitive from Greece, is accused of looting his bank of more than $210 million. In jail in Massachusetts and facing extradition, Koskotas told TIME that much of the missing money was used to make regular payoffs to PASOK officials...
There was little danger of interference. Fifty different national 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...
...instructed never to criticize the Prime Minister personally, not even a single cartoon." Papandreou urged Koskotas to neutralize hostile newspapers by buying them up gradually. At their second meeting in early 1987, Papandreou pressed Koskotas to buy Kathimerini, the country's most respected paper; he did, using Bank of Crete funds...
Koskotas' first ambition, he says, was to enlarge the Bank of Crete. Private banks routinely had to wait at least a year for authorization to open a single branch. But the Bank of Crete opened about 50 branches in four years, and licenses were granted for an additional 20. Sure of his political shield, Koskotas was unafraid to violate banking laws and withdraw huge sums of cash at will. If Koskotas worried aloud about audits, Papandreou was always reassuring. "So long as I am here," Koskotas says Papandreou told him, "you never have to worry...
Back in Greece, still only 25, he landed a job as an administrative officer at the Bank of Crete. Five years later, in late 1984 when the Bank of Crete came up for purchase at $9 million, Koskotas somehow produced a bankroll big enough to buy it. He knew exactly where he wanted to go. The Socialists were immersed in an election and Koskotas was determined to curry favor. Within a few months he hired as bank general manager a PASOK veteran, Panayotis Vakalis, whom he knew to be a longtime friend of Andreas Papandreou's. The connection eventually brought...