Armaments Scandal - Shipowner Michalis Matados Charged Of Money Laundering

Shipowner and MIE company representative Michalis Matados, who is accused on bribery and money laundering, is expected to appear before investigators on the ongoing armaments kickback case this coming Thursday.

The charges against Matados are related to the central role his company allegedly played in the case of submarines as well as for the movement of large sums of money provided for "payments for benefit of inventory".

A report from the state news agency says that investigators of the case have at their disposal new bank account data through which money from the armament programs appear to have been laundered.

Meanwhile, it was made known that at the beginning of February Swiss prosecutors are going to receive testimonies from those already accused on kickbacks, including former defence minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos, his wife Vicky Stamatis and even his cousin Nikos Zigras.

Tsochatzopoulos is the key figure in a scandal that has indeed shocked citizens all over Greece. Earlier last year he was sentenced to eight years in prison for tax evasion and several months later (or in October) he was sentenced to a further twenty years for corruption and money laundering.

Meanwhile, Yiannis Beltsios (63), an associate of former defence minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos, is accused of handing over German bribes totalling more than 63,192,691 Euros and 2,960,225 Swiss francs to Tsochatzopoulos and to Sotiris Emmanouil (61), the former chairman of Hellenic Shipyards

According to Eleftherotypia police arrested Beltsios (63), the charges against Beltsios range from felonies of active corruption to money laundering.

At the same time, Sotiris Emmanouil, the former chairman of Hellenic Shipyards, was also arrested after anti-corruption investigators, who have heard explosive testimony about the submarine deals from a number of people in recent weeks, issued warrants for his arrest.

Generally unknown to the authorities until recently, Beltsios' name surfaced in documents presented during the so-called "golden kickbacks" trial that was held against Tsochatzopoulos. Avatangelos, who is accused of involvement in paying the bribes with Beltsios, was released on bail in November of 500,000 Euros.

German documents provided to Greek judicial authorities appear to show the involvement of Emmanuel and Beltsios in the scandal. The former, according to the German case file, appears to have received the sum of 17 million, which was to be distributed in Greece as a "gift" to compensate for the decision to order the submarines from Germany.

As it appears, the latter acted as an intermediary between Tsochatzopoulos and the HDW/Ferrostaal consortium.

In a previous testimony to a Munich public prosecutor, Matados said that he paid about 1 million Euros to Beltsios.

     "At MIE (a Greek agent of Ferrostaal), we were asked if we could pay something to Mr Beltsios, which we did. We paid Mr Beltsios about 1 million Euros around March 2000. I think that the amount paid in drachmas, I do not remember if it was by cheque or cash. I wasn't told why Mr Beltsios received this money. I believe it was for his excellent work."

Although Matados subsequently denied some of the statements attributed to him, there are other stakeholders who have given similar testimony to the prosecutors in Munich.

Among them is a former senior Ferrostaal executive, Johann-Friedrich Haun, who claimed that Tsochatzopoulos advised them that "Beltsios was someone who knows a lot of people and who could be useful". According to him "the two of them, Tsochatzopoulos and Beltsios, know each other from PASOK and are very old friends."

In December 2011, a Munich court imposed a 140 million Euro fine on Ferrostaal, after two former managers, including Haun, were convicted of bribery. Haun was fined 36,000 Euros and required to pay an additional 30,000 Euros to charities. Both received suspended prison terms of two years.

It should be reminded that in February 2000, a German consortium, comprising Thyssen Nordseewerke, Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) and Ferrostaal, signed a 1.14 billion Euro contract with the Greek government to build three Type 214 submarines at Hellenic Shipyards and a fourth submarine at HDW's shipyard in Kiel.

The consortium also incurred associated costs – known as offset obligations – to the tune of 1.53 billion Euros. Common but controversial, offsets are where a country demands certain economic benefits – like  technological know how or the of local suppliers to build the equipment they are buying – when they spend large parts of their government budgets buying defence equipment from foreign suppliers.

Another contract, signed in May 2002 involved the modernisation of three Type 209 submarines at Hellenic Shipyards, with an option for a fourth submarine. The contract was worth approximately 469.4 million Euros. Offset obligations in relation to this contract amounted to 563 million Euros. As part of the deal, HDW and Ferrostaal agreed to buy a majority interest in Hellenic Shipyards, signing a contract for that on the same day as the submarine deal.

Sources - Eleftherotypia, Euro2day, AMNA

To get a better understanding of this case we suggest that you also read:

How Paying Double For German Subs Helped To Sink Greece
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-paying-double-for-german-subs.html

EXPOSED - Classified Documents About Bribery From German Arms Manufacturers To Greek Politicians
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2012/07/exposed-classified-documents-about.html

An Introduction And Analysis Of The Siemens and Ferrostaal Scandals
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2012/06/introduction-and-analysis-of-siemens.html

More Arrested Over Bribery & Kickbacks Claims In Arms Deals
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2014/01/more-arrested-over-bribery-kickbacks.html

Russian Arms Exporter Denies Links to Greek Arms Bribe Scandal
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2014/01/russian-arms-exporter-denies-links-to.html

SPECIAL REPORT - Kantas EXPOSES Massive German-Greek Web of Corruption In Defence Contracts
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2013/12/special-report-kantas-exposes-massive.html

NEW SCANDAL - SYRIZA Targets Venizelos in Defence Systems Contract Fiasco
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2013/10/new-scandal-syriza-targets-venizelos-in.html

Venizelos, An Overflowing Bank Account and German Arms Bribery
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2012/03/venizelos-overflowing-bank-account-and.html

How Papakostaninou Gave 500mln to the A.Rossoni Group After The Debut Of The Memorandums
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-papakostaninou-gave-500mln-to.html

Forgiving Siemens And German Corruption in Greece
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2012/07/forgiving-siemens-and-german-corruption.html

The Sochi 2014 Olympics & The “Lost Islamic Bomb Lady” - MUST READ

Andrew McKillop (Global Research) - News reports now place the probable cost of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia at more than $51 billion making them the most expensive-ever. Security costs help explain this.

Vladimir Putin’s ironclad determination to make the games a success – makes them a rising political risk, not only for domestic political consumption but also a challenge to Russia’s federal unity and relations with its Asian neighbors, and internationally. Making the Sochi games a PR disaster is the goal of Putin’s enemies.

The Islamic Bomb Lady was officially seen by Russian police. They identified her as 22 year old terrorist Razmena Ibragimova, displayed on Russia’s official Sochi blog sites. Her terrorist credentials were bolstered by a clumsily falsified side-profile photograph, portraying her bulging neck probably hiding explosives behind her scarf. Officially she was part of the Volgograd bombing conspiracy and Razmena is now the Most Wanted Lady in Russia. Source: http://www.blogsochi.ru/category/temy-publikatsii/novosti-sochi

Once Upon a Time There was Pingpong Diplomacy

Cold war-era diplomacy of the 1960s included the “ping-pong diplomacy” US-China phase, but today’s Russia-Saudi Arabia jousting is measured by the number of body parts on the pavement after each designer bomb attack by a throwaway human suicide bomber.

To date, Saudi Arabia has scored several direct hits against Putin’s Russia, but the ex-KGB chief is unlikely to take that lying down. Revenge hits against Saudi-backed Arab capitals, and against Riyadh-backed forces active in Syria are either certain or not impossible, to ram home the Putin message that Saudi Arabia is a small country on the edge of “The World Island” that talks a lot too loud – only thanks to oil.

At home in Russia, the Islamic kamikaze bombing scare, which in fact may have been Soviet-era agitprop not needing any Saudi petro-dollars or American nods to be executed, enables Putin to further seal the power of his New State apparatus. The new state is little changed from the old USSR, which set the southern Caucus Republics as the acid test arena for total power by Moscow.

Today, Razmena is placarded on wanted posters all across Sochi. According to one poster on display at all security checkpoints in Sochi’s airport, Ibragimova is “currently located on Sochi territory” and ‘could attempt a suicide bombing’ at any time, according to the poster.

Ramming home the fear message for visitors who will pay at least $500-a-day to be in Sochi for the Winter Olympics, she is described as having been spotted on the street near the Russian foreign ministry building, and in streets near the upmarket hotels of Sochi. Imagine that. Not great in terms of events marketing, but the Russian Bear can ill-afford to be shy this time around.

Stalingrad and the Terror Republic

Under its former name Stalingrad, today’s Volgograd was the Martyr City for Soviet resistance to Nazi Germany, but security analysts estimate that hundreds of the 2000-odd Islamic terror attacks on Russian Federal territory since 1990 have been in or around Volgograd. Veterans of the 1990s-era conflict waged by Moscow against breakaway independence movements state that at the time most of them flew the Islamic flag and were eager to receive Saudi petrodollars. The theater was however already widening across the Caucasian Republics including Chechnya, Ingueshetia, Daghestan, Tatarstan, and in Russian satrape republics such as Azerbaijan, and the 1990s veterans recall that in that period, ruthless terror-versus-terror tactics and strategy became the norm.

These veterans, some of them now Douma parliamentarians say the intensity of conflict has moved up, from that previous terror war level to a much wider “conflict of civilizations”, even a threat to the continued existence of Russia. Tom Nichols, a professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College cited by Stripes .com 15 January said the intensity of conflict.. “ has made the Russians — who already are used to a strong state security apparatus — far more willing to empower its internal security forces way beyond anything Americans would ever allow”.

Saudi terror strategy may be comfortable for its Riyadh purveyors, players and payers safe in Riyadh, when it concerns Mali, Niger, South Sudan, the Central African Republic or Riyadh’s other low-income Black African asymmetric war theaters, but in the Russia Caucuses this is a high risk gambit and historic conflict that Islam always lost. Inside the Russian Federation, longstanding political conflicts are already sufficient to make government difficult. Adding a layer of Saudi-financed and American-tolerated Islamic extremism may create a runaway process of domestic conflict – which for Putin and his oligarchs is exactly what they want to intensify and seal their total power.

For Russian leaders, the calls by some Syrian rebels for the creation of a fundamentalist Islamic state in their homeland sound uncomfortably similar to the goals of Doku Umarov, the Chechen leader of the so-called, ‘Caucasus Emirate’. The stated aim of Umarov’s group, designated by Moscow, and by Washington as a terrorist organization, is to establish an Islamic state on Russian territory. Chechen fighters like Omar Abu al-Chechen, who leads an expatriate jihadist force known as the Faithful Immigrant Brothers in Syria, have sparked Kremlin fears that the real goal of extremists is to make Syria into a base for future terror operations inside Russia.

Chechnya has become ever more critical to Kremlin strategists, the front line theater for Russian-Saudi conflict with Sochi an easy ride from its borders. This theater is particularly acute due to the fact that Syria has thousands of fighters who, according to the Russian Spetznaz special services, are a serious and real threat for the country. Ramzan  Kadyrov, the former Chechen rebel placed in charge by Kremlin and an adept at counter-terror war, has on many recent occasions said that Islamist insurgents in Chechnya have reached “plague proportions” and in his view are only biding their time before moving north to Russia – and to Europe.

Syria Split Could Set Russia Alight

State Douma deputy and Foreign relations commission chief Anatoly Ermolin, with a long military track record in Chechnya and the Caucuses during the 1990s bluntly says : “I think this is one of the most dangerous things for any government. They (the Islamists) are very serious and believe they can organize an Islamic state….They consider (Russia) to be their territory. We are dry wood; it’s very easy to set fire to the situation.”

Ermolin is openly alarmed and alarmist because he believes the disastrous conflict in Syria divided Russia and NATO-member countries into two camps, with the US-led west leaning to support or at least tolerance of the Islamists, despite the increasingly frenzied extremist nature of Syria’s opposition. For Russia this means it is next in line for destabilization, by Islam under the guise of, and stoked by Western-Russian rivalry and conflict. Ermolin says there can soon be a major realignment of international relations and vital interests.

Add the Saudi terror chief, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan (photo, left) into this mix and the fuse is nearly lit. The London Telegraph reported back in October about Saudi Arabia’s under the table offer to Russia for a chance to ‘control the world’s oil market’ in some type of strategic alliance between OPEC and Russia – but only if Russia would wash its hands of the Assad regime in Syria. That was the carrot. The stick was somewhat more barbaric:

Bandar threatened to unleash his Chechen terrorists in order to shutdown, and possibly kill civilians at Sochi. He is alleged to have said:

     "I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the Games are controlled by us"

Beyond Saudi Arabia international racketeering and extortion, in there is fear in Germany, France, the UK and Italy – as there is in Russia, of what happens when thousands of young “jihadis” return from the Syrian war. Russian foreign relations experts like Ermolin say this will be the acid test, and in the Middle East will surely and certainly coincide with the equally rising threat of more open and wider conflict between Sunni Saudi Arabia, and Shia Iran. The dangers of another Iran-Sunni war like the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war are claimed by Russian policy experts to have been completely underestimated in the west. As they and Russian military analysts say, the potential for a repeat of the 1980-88 war “going nuclear” is high.

Russian experts also say the dangers of Iran itself destabilizing and “turning to terror” have been ignored or underestimated in the west. Both Saudi Arabia and Israel, backed by the US and several EU countries, especially France give either open or covert support to anti-Iranian Sunni terror movements, making all out Iran-versus-Sunni war the logical follow-up. In the case of Iranian defeat, spillover will, the Russians say, be large scale regional, not contained. As a result, although never stated as a driver for US and European thawing towards Iran, the risk of Iran being destabilized have to be taken seriously.

Whistling in the Dark

To date, western understanding of the war theater’s dimensions and component drivers is, Russians say, woeful. The USA’s Boston Bombings, for example, were laughably unprofessional pinpricks. European domestic experience of eradicating Islamist insurgents, they add, is close to zero making for permanent underestimation of the threat.

Reasons for this western blind spot to the insurgent threat, which in Russia now straddles both ethnic religious and nationalist political lines – notably in Tartarstan – can be traced to different Russian and western interpretations of geopolitics. For Russians, even in the 1930s Stalin era, Halford Mackinder’s theory of “The World Island”, centered on Russia but spreading south through the Caucuses to Arabia, North Africa and Europe was taken as a game plan and threat – or prize – for the USSR. Putin’s Russian Federation of today is driven by geopolitical hopes and fears linked to the Mackinder theory.

To be sure, Washington has decided the dispatch of a small anti-terror group of experts to Sochi, more for protecting US athletes and comforting domestic political opinion than aiding Moscow, but soon, analysts and Russian leaders say, Moscow and Washington will have to collaborate better. To do this, they will have to set aside other issues that get in the way. The USA’s new isolationism, however, may also hamper this needed collaboration, and like the Europeans, the US may be tempted to turn Russia’s difficulties to its advantage – by pouring oil and Saudi petro-dollars on the fire.

Senior Russian political figures like Alexander Khinshtein, Vice chairman of the State Douma’s Security and anti-corruption commission, make it plain that formerly contained, localized and specific Islamic terror threats and action have massively changed since the 1990s. Khinshtein says that  “Terrorism cannot be a local problem; it is not a problem for just one place.” Russian news releases and investigations concerning the Volgograd bombings already say these attacks – which are part of a longstanding organized campaign – link closely to non-Islamic political independence movements in Russia’s Caucasian republics.

The challenge from the Islamic south, to Russia’s “world island” has now mutated and coalesced with other movements and issues that, in the 1990s, were totally separate. The Sochi theater for terror war and counter-terror war concerns the whole world.

OPINION - The front against terrorism in Greece

(TO VIMA) - It is an insult for a so-called self-appointed armed defender of the people to pretend to honor democracy.

This country has paid enough for the criminal action of all sorts of terrorist groups that every now and again murder in the name of “the people’s” interests. Democracy can tolerate even those who subvert it, but not ruthless murdered and rapists.

Christodoulos Xiros and his buddies cannot convince anyone with their raving delusions. They are condemned in the consciousness of the overwhelming majority of people as cold-hearted criminals, whose only “service” is to create tension and problems in the country’s international relations.

Violence and its wildest form terrorism cannot be acceptable in any democratic society. The universal condemnation and isolation from the full spectrum of the political world is a powerful tool in the hands of democracy. The threats of paranoid gunmen can and must be dealt with their complete depreciation, with the creating of a democratic front against terrorism. A country that is suffering, a society that is paying for the crisis does not have the luxury of being against the neo-Nazis on the one hand and the leftist “punishers” on the other.

Violence and terrorism never solved the problems of any country or society. All it achieved was to create new problems and new disasters. The few morons who are charmed by the hate and blood must think - if they can - of the effects of another blind terrorist attack by Xiros and his buddies. Let them remember what happened in the past with the assassinations and terrorist bomb attacks and let them consider the consequences.

Despite the problems and malfunctions, democracy is historically proven to be the safest shield for social and individual rights, as well as the guarantor of social stability and the people’s safety. Thanks to these rights Xiros is free today, hopefully not for long, to make his threats. These rights concern all of us and along with the political system and democratic institutions, it is our duty to protect them. With the unanimous and universal condemnation of terrorist, as it already happened, as well as the depreciation and marginalization of the few, incorrigible assassins, who want to cause new trouble for the country.

Nov. 17 Leader Says Gov't, CIA & EYP To Blame for Xiros' Escape

The alleged leader of the notorious November 17 terrorist group, Alexandros Giotopoulos, on Tuesday blamed authorities over the escape and/or disappearance of November 17 convicted murderer/terrorist Christodoulos Xiros. Giotopoulos, who is serving 17 life terms plus 25 years for apparently masterminding 17 murders, a plethora of bombings, robberies as well as other crimes, said that intelligence agencies such as Greece's EYP, the CIA and other authorities did nothing to prevent this from happening.

In a letter, that was published in the Tuesday edition of the Eleftherotypia paper, Giotopoulos said that authorities did "nothing" to prevent the escape of Xiros.

    "So, all those guys in the counter terrorism unit, EYP (Greek National Intelligence Service), the government and the CIA didn't know that Christodoulos had taken six permits (for leave) in 18 months? What did they do to prevent his disappearance? Nothing," said Giotopoulos.

He claimed that when another convicted member of the group, Vasilis Tzortzatos, was released on leave, six cars with officers from the counter terrorism monitored his every move but no such force was dispatched to shadow Xiros.

Giotopoulos also questioned why Xiros received a prison leave, especially after setting fire to his cell in 2011. According to the article in Eleftherotypia, Xiros received permission to visit senior prison wardens after that incident, as well as members of the Conspiracy of Fire Cells Conspiracy guerrilla group, and even hardcore criminals.

     "Who gave the order? Certainly not not director or the prison warden. They have no such power, nor would they assume such responsibility. The order came from above. From the counter terrorism unit, EYP and, thus, from the government that supervises them," he stated.
     "So let's not try to blame the guards who were simply executing orders. Those responsible are the ministers who are now howling and screaming with hypocrisy, while the situation suits them. They've stopped issuing permits during the short time of the (Greece's EU) presidency and are preparing to effectively abolish them afterwards."

In the letter, Giotopoulos also questioned why an ghost fingerprint that was allegedly discovered in a hideout in his partner's home on the island of Lipsi in 2002 was never matched.

     "Twelve years later" he said, "they have found nothing. Which means that there was no fingerprint. This was a fabrication against me either by the counter terrorism unit or EYP. And instead of staying quiet, they are now using the TV channels to show ... that there are fugitive members N17."

It should be reminded that Xiros failed to return from prison leave earlier this month. On Monday Xiros reappeared after releasing a shocking video on (the Soros-backed) Indymedia website, vowing to wage an armed campaign against those he claims are destroying Greece.

Sources:

• http://www.defencenet.gr/defence/item/%CE%B1%CE%B3% 
• http://infognomonpolitics.blogspot.gr/2014/01/blog-post_9218

Also Read:

BREAKING: Nov. 17 Terrorist On The Run Makes Appearance, Calls On Anarchists To Take Arms! (PICS + VIDEO)
http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2014/01/breaking-nov-17-terrorist-on-run-makes.html

Samaras: Greece Is Heading Toward The Exit From The Bailout Programs

(Photo credit: PSD - Partido Social Democrata)

(AMNA via capital) - Greece is heading toward recovery and an exit from bailout programmes, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said in Athens on Monday. Speaking at an event organised by the Greek-German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Samaras appeared confident the country has finally escaped the risk of default and that, through the government’s hard work and the sacrifices of its people, Greece’s image has changed.

     "The recovery in now beginning and a new Greece is emerging," he said, AMNA reported.

The premier promised to continue working without making any concessions and said that his goals were to lead Greece to an exit from the bailout memorandums, to correct injustices and reduce the tax burden.

     "The biggest achievement is that we are now past the point where we might return, there is no going back to the things that hurt us and shamed us," Samaras said.
     "We pushed ahead with structural changes, with great effort and struggle, and proved wrong all doom-mongers who said that Greece would exit the euro,” he added.

According to AMNA, Samaras also referred with particular emphasis to the primary surplus achieved in 2013, stressing its significance.

As he put it, the reform programme was working and economic recovery will begin in 2014: "I am telling the truth and you know it. Yes, the first bailout memorandum was wrong and that’s why we changed it.”

The premier once again targeted main opposition leftist SYRIZA, saying "instead of looking ahead, some are trying to take us back, and they want us back into uncertainty.”

He made it clear that he would disappoint those who wish the government to fail "and to suffer new hard lending conditions" and spoke of insidious forces that want Greece out of Europe.

     "We refute them every day, and soon the progress will be seen in the real economy," Samaras said.

The premier presented the three immediate priorities for the next period, including the goal to return up to 70 percent of the primary surplus to society, noting that for the first time there will be a restoration of wrongs that will be felt by those who are most in need.

Another objective listed by Samaras was a "full assurance of debt sustainability," which he described as crucial to pave the way for investment, while he also placed special emphasis on the success of the Greek Presidency of the European Council.

World's 85 Super Rich Have Same Amount of Wealth as Half of Entire Population

Cassius Methyl (Activist Post) - According to studies from Oxfam International, The 85 richest people on the planet have approximately the same amount of wealth as the bottom half of the entire population. It is speculated that the wealth of the wealthiest individuals in the world is greater than the public knows, but according to even these studies, the wealthiest people in the world are still quite wealthy, while the citizens of the world are left to starve and work for crumbs.

The alleged 85 wealthiest individuals on Earth, a very small fraction of  the "1%" , own about 46% of all wealth on Earth, according to a report titled "Working For the Few."

These 85 people allegedly have about $110 trillion in wealth.

How bad must the divide be, between the wealth of the citizens and the wealth of these barons, if these are the numbers openly declared? Wouldn’t you think that the reality is actually worse than the statements of this report, and how much worse is the disparity in reality?

Mainstream media outlets covered this report, while U.S. President Barack Obama has pretended to take a stand against the wealth disparity he surely contributed to, saying the disparity between the rich and poor was a bigger threat to the U.S. economy than the budget deficit.

It seems the best way to know what the numbers are is to objectively do research, to take matters into our own hands, rather than depending on a body of people to tell us what the statistics are. But the trend is clear: the Oxfam report cited "rigged rules" as a leading cause of the current disparity.

    ...seven out of ten people live in countries where economic inequality has increased in the last 30 years. Besides, the richest one per cent increased their share of income in 24 out of 26 countries for which we have data between 1980 and 2012.

In any case, the ‘elite’ grow wealthier every day, while many people starve and die as "austerity" measures are impressed on the masses.