Greece: Money Laundering
| Published date | 01 April 1999 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb027227 |
| Date | 01 April 1999 |
| Pages | 161-172 |
| Author | Constantin Stefanou,Helen Xanthaki |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance |
Journal of Money Laundering Control — Vol. 3 No. 2
COUNTRY PROFILE
Greece: Money Laundering
Constantin Stefanou and Helen Xanthaki
INTRODUCTION
The Greek regime on money laundering tends to be
unknown to most foreign experts. This is partly
due to the language barrier and partly due to the
admittedly minimal bibliography on the regulation
of money laundering both within the country and
outside it. The limited bibliography is emphasised
by a total lack of recorded criminal cases for money
laundering brought before the Greek courts. The
aim of this article is to present and examine Greek
legislation and policy on money laundering. The
necessity for a dedicated legislative text, hotly dis-
puted by some legal experts in Greece, and the two
Greek attempts at compliance with the EU Money
Laundering Directive will be examined, as will the
political parameters of this issue. Their repercussions
on the enforcement of money laundering legislation
will be assessed.
THE GENERAL CONTEXT
Despite the fact that organised crime has evidently
made inroads into Greece and despite the evidence
collected from international anti-organised-crime
operations, such as Operation Dinero in the mid-
1990s, which indicated Greece's vulnerability to
penetration from organised crime, especially in
money laundering, the subject has never been seen
as an urgent priority. It is usually bypassed by
politicians or drowned in the wider topic of crime
statistics.
The reasons for this apathy towards measures
against organised crime in general and money
laundering in particular have been based on two
elements: first, the probably mistaken belief that
when it comes to drugs Greece is, as Katsios
notes,1
a 'transit country' and not a 'consumer country'.
The second element, which dates back to the late
1980s, is the connection between the Koskotas
scandal (Bank of Crete) with the BCCI scandal.
The Koskotas scandal, which brought down a
government and resulted in the conviction of a
government minister, is seen as one of the darkest
moments of Greek political life and, as such, it and
the issues it represents are best left alone, at least for
internal political consumption purposes.
Until recently, money laundering was seen as an
irrelevance. The official line of the Greek police
had, since the early 1970s, been that organised
crime is not active in Greece. Money laundering
was deemed impossible to operate in the hyper-
centralised and closely monitored Greek banking
system, which had strict regulations on the import
and export of capital, or in the state-controlled
casinos. It comes, therefore, as no surprise that the
Greek state never felt the need to legislate on the
issue of money laundering. Although privately
concern was expressed, the official line of the two
major parties was pretty similar in bypassing
money laundering as a problem for the country. It
is interesting to note that although most Greek
books on the problem of narcotics contain sections
on money laundering, these sections merely mention
en passant that this is also a problem in Greece con-
centrating instead on money laundering examples
from the US.2
There is, of course, no evidence to suggest that
Greece is an important centre for money laundering.
Perhaps this is why the Greek state did not see
measures against money laundering as an important
priority. Yet, given Greece's geographical position
in the Balkans (referred to by a Greek daily news-
paper as the 'crossroads of death'3), there is little
doubt that money laundering exists in its various
forms and guises, even if the amounts involved are
not statistically salient. According to US State
Department reports4 the Balkan peninsula, especially
the Albania-Kosovo-FYROM area (essentially adja-
cent to Greece's northern border), is one of the
worst areas in terms of drug trafficking, which origi-
nates in eastern Turkey and is directed, mainly via
Bulgaria, to the Western European markets. Greece's
extensive coastline and the thousands of small islands
make it a prime target as a pick-up point for drug
Journal of Money Laundering Control
Vol 3, No.
2,
1999, pp 161-172
© Henry Stewart Publications
ISSN 1368-5201
Page 161
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