Lagarde List controversy keeps swirling around - can Venizelos avoid scrutiny ?

http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/lagardes-greek-list-siemens-and-venizelos-in-the-dock/

JANUARY 10, 2013 · 3:13 PM

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LAGARDE’S GREEK LIST: Siemens and Venizelos in the dock

With the assistance of French banking codes, new analyses by the Greek department of Justice suggest very strongly that several of the names on the ‘Lagarde List’ of illegal untaxed Swiss bank accounts deposited sums received directly as bribes from German arms supplier Siemens. Athenian commentators are now asserting that Evangelos Venizelos is so involved in this scandal, he represents a bigger threat to the Samaras government’s survival than Alexis Tsipras.

Greek entrepreneurs Marios Katsikas, Panagiotis Voila, Sophocles Priniotakis D. Siafaka, Maria-Christina Makrodimou, and research and brokerage firm “Pegasus” head Rammos Athanasius have been fingered as depositing large sums into HSBC Zurich during October 2010, when the Siemens bribes to Greek officials are known to have been rife. In turn, there are alleged to be 17 instances of traceable organized crime money laundering, involving a total loss to the Greek exchequer of around €2 billion.

Sophocles Priniotakis in particular was widely accused during the Siemens scandal. The cypher through to the Swiss accounts looks as if it may have been the Bank of Greece (an institution itself that has been the subject of much criminal speculation).

The Siemens bribery case was closed in August 2011, when the Athens parliament concluded that there was no reason for further investigation or referral. Venizelos played a major part in this closure, but it’s now beginning to look as if he didn’t cover his tracks well enough after all. German paper Süddeutsche Zeitung writes today that ‘The opposition is not the biggest threat to the government or the plans of the troika. If the government falls it will be because the government partner and president of PASOK Evangelos Venizelos is a factor of uncertainty. He refuses to clarify his role in the falsification scandal [concerning Lagarde's List] of Swiss bank accounts. Former Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou is not willing to be the only black sheep who will go to jail…’

What Samaras fears now is that Papaconstantinou will ‘shop’ Evangalos Veryfatos. This would then drag crooked Germans back into the limelight….just as Angela Merkelopoulus is wrestling with a Cypriot bailout she may find it hard to sell to the Bundestag.

Lagarde’s List simply refuses to go away. Stay tuned.

and.......

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_10/01/2013_477863

Multiple memory sticks raise new Lagarde list questions Following a series of developments in the Lagarde list probe that suggest the existence of at least three memory sticks containing the details of some 2,000 Greeks with deposits at a Swiss branch of HSBC, authorities are hoping that the additional testimony former Financial Crimes Squad (SDOE) chief, Yiannis Diotis, is to give on Monday will shed some light on the affair. Prosecutors said on Thursday that the data on a USB stick in their possession had been copied onto the device in July 2011, after former Finance Minister Giorgos Papaconstantinou left office but before his successor, current PASOK chief Evangelos Venizelos, received the data from Diotis. Meanwhile investigative journalist Costas Vaxevanis claimed the flash drive he has was created in August 2010, before Papaconstantinou claims to have received a CD with the list from French authorities. Vaxevanis gave his device to Supreme Court vice prosecutor Nikos Pantelis. Prosecutors are said to have drawn two key conclusions – firstly that the original CD given to Papaconstantinou has been lost and secondly that at least three copies of a USB stick containing the list data were created. One is in the hands of prosecutors, the second was given by Vaxevanis to Pantelis and the third – the original – remains unaccounted for. As Papaconstantinou copied the data from the original CD to a memory stick which he gave to SDOE – and cannot account for either – he remains under suspicion for tampering. A copy of the original list given to Greek authorities by the French last month contained 2,062 names, three more than on the flash drive being probed by prosecutors. The trio are relatives of Papaconstantinou. Complicating matters, a member of the police’s electronic crimes squad told Pantelis that the date on a memory stick can easily be changed and should not form the basis for sound conclusions. Parliament is to vote on whether Papaconstantinou, Venizelos (and former premiers Lucas Papademos and George Papandreou) should be the focus of an inquiry into the handling of the Lagarde list on January 17 irrespective of the lack of progress in the prosecutors’ probe. and..... http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2013/01/10/lagarde-list-much-to-many-copied-usb-sticks-puzzle-greeks-or-not/ Lagarde list: much to many copied usb-sticks puzzle Greeks – or not Posted by keeptalkinggreece in Politics I openly admit: I cannot make a clue. I have been following a morning magazine on television trying to unravel the skein of the Lagerde list and the much too many scenarios about who tampered it. There is the original CD handed by then French finance minister to her then Greek counterpart George Papaconstantinou in October 2010. This CD was copied into a usb stick. And then it looks there are several copies and clones of this stick that contains 2.062 or 2,059 names of potential tax evaders. While there has been no official statemnt so far about sticks copies and clones, several leakages to the Greek press create such a confusion that I am really unable to follow. Whether I watch television programs on the issue or I read newspapers and websites. In fact, I am rather lazy to read all details and names of the thriller that pulls former finance minister George Papaconstantinou and possibly PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos into abuse of political power or even legal actions. So far the main question who and when tampered the memory stick. So far Papaconstantinou denied all accusations that it was him who removed the names of his three relatives from Lagarde list. So far two dates have been leaked to the press about the date of tamperation: 1)  July 8, 2011:  According to judicial sources, the memory stick was copied in the first half of July 2011, most probably on July 8th 2011, when Papaconstantinou was replaced and Venizelos had not took office as finance minister (ethnos.gr) 2) 4-5 August 2010: According to Costas Vaxevanis, the journalist who published 1,962 excel archives with names of HSBC account holders in October 2012, the usb stick he had received was copied on 4-5 August 2010.  That is several months before Papaconstantinou told state broadcaster NET on Monday that he had received the CD from the French. Vaxevanis had given the usb-stick to a electronic forensics company for investigation. (HOT DOC magazine via Protothema) According to Efimerida twn Syntaktwn, the Lagarde list is much more than the removal of Papaconstantinou relatives. It contains names of people who were involved in SIEMENS-bribes and other scandals such as those of “structured bonds”. These accounts were investigated by the Bank of Greece and the Financial Crimes Units (SDOE). “The Lagarde list in form of CD was handed out to Papaconstantinou in September 2010 through diplomatic channels,” so Greek Foreign Ministry (Proto Thema) Nevertheless, the parliamentary committee investigating the assets of political persons decided to call former minister Yiannos Papantoniou (PASOK) and  Giorgos Voulgarakis (Nea Dimocratia) to explain amounts their wives had in HSBC and whose names were on the Lagarde list. The committee sent the Voulgarakis case to prosecutor for an amount on undeclared 110,000 euro. The Papantoniou case is still under investigation by the committee. Interesting enough is that all ministers under suspicion have withdrawn from politics and are considered “politically dead”. Whether Lagarde list leads to SIEMENS scandal or to Noah’s flood, one thing is clear: politicians and state officials failed in dealing with the hot material, while the many leakages create confusion and distract the public opinion. Not to mention the attempts to cover up the truth. What is striking is that the Lgarde list is high on the agenda of the political and media world,  while we, average Greeks, face the same dilemma on a daily winter basis: eat or heat? PS we live in a nice playground…