Political battle brews in Greece over “Paradise Papers”

“All names contained in the Paradise Papers will be scrutinized on the basis of the law,” said government spokesman, Dimitris Tzanakopoulos on Tuesday, in light of the recent revelations.

“Paradise Papers” are 6.5 million documents that reveal that there are hundreds of billions of dollars deposited in 19 tax havens by political leaders, business magnates, athletes, actors and other known individuals.

Among the documents there are 6,000 relating to 130 names of Greek interest with 252 contact addresses in Greece, mainly in Athens and Piraeus. A large number of documents for Greek offshore companies were also found in the Malta Registry.

The government spokesman implied that there might even be names related to the main opposition party, New Democracy. A comment made by ND leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis that there are legal and illegal offshore companies prompted Tzanakopoulos to imply that the conservative party is worried about the exposure of the names on the list.

“We assure New Democracy that all the names contained in the Paradise Papers will be scrutinized on the basis of the law,” he said, adding, “However, if New Democracy can enlighten us in advance about certain cases, we call them to do so immediately and without mincing words”.

Tzanakopoulos said that the priorities of the Independent Authority for Public Revenue and the Finance Ministry are to investigate large tax evasion cases with the aim of uncovering incomes hidden from the tax office.

Name of wife of New Democracy leader in ‘Paradise Papers’

Mareva Grabowski, wife of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is on the controversial list as a shareholder in an offshore company, and the SYRIZA government is trying to take advantage of that.

New Democracy spokesperson Maria Spyraki stated that the involvement of Grabowski in the company, which has its headquarters in the Cayman Islands, became known a year ago from a newspaper report, but after the audit that followed, nothing objectionable was found.

Spyraki noted that the company showed losses and was only active during the 2010-2012 period, a time that the Mitsotakis couple were living separately. Also, fiduciaries of the company were JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, that have guaranteed the legitimacy of all activities. Grabowski, never took money out of Greece illegally, neither was she involved in any money laundering activity.

Source: greece.greekreporter.com