Lagarde list

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The Lagarde list ( Greek λίστα Λαγκάρντ ) is a list of names of alleged Greek tax evaders that triggered several political scandals in Greece . It is a subset of the Swiss Leaks dataset.

The list contains account details of over 2,000 Greek customers of the Geneva private bank HSBC . The data was stolen by Hervé Falciani , an employee of the bank. A data carrier with the records was given in 2010 by the then French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde to her Greek colleague Giorgos Papakonstantinou .

Origin and application

Neither Papakonstantinou nor his successor as Minister of Finance, Evangelos Venizelos , made use of the data . Papakonstantinou said he had forwarded a copy to the then head of the Greek tax investigation department and had lost the original. The list did not reappear until the beginning of October 2012 - albeit in a slightly abbreviated form: While the original Lagarde list still had 2,062 entries, it was now only 2,059. The accounts of two of Papakonstantinous' cousins and their spouses were missing . This came to light when France passed the original list on to Greece a second time. The Greek parliament then lifted Papakonstantinou's immunity on July 15, 2013. A revision of the list was promised in 2015 under the new government of Tsipras . In April 2015, Leonidas Bobolas, owner of construction and media companies, had to pay 1.8 million taxes as a result of the investigation based on the Lagarde list. The investigations, which have come under fire because they are slow and have so far resulted in relatively few tax proceedings, are made more difficult by the reduction in the staff of the SDOE financial police due to the cutbacks in recent years.

Publication and content

The Greek journalist Kostas Vaxevanis, editor of the tabloid magazine Hot Doc , published the list and was subsequently temporarily arrested and charged with stealing personal information, but acquitted in autumn 2012.

  • The list also included the names of Leonidas Tzanis, a former deputy interior minister (1999-2001), and Vlassis Kambouroglou. After the list was published in October 2012, Leonidas Tzanis committed suicide; he hanged himself in his garage. Vlassis Kambouroglou, a businessman, was found dead in a hotel room in Jakarta a few days later . Kambouroglou was the former director of Drumilan International, a company involved in the 2004 sale of Russian Tor-M1 missile systems to Greece. He was accused of being involved in a corruption affair that had recently led to the arrest of former Defense Minister Giannis Sbokos on suspicion of corruption and money laundering .
  • According to the list, the wife of the former finance and defense minister Giannos Papantoniou , Stavroula Kourakou, had a balance of 1.3 million euros at the HSBC bank. Since Papantoniou had not stated these assets in his property declaration, an investigation was initiated against him.
  • Athens newspapers also reported that one of HSBC's € 550 million black money accounts was in the name of Margaret Papandreou. The 89-year-old mother of the former Greek Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou is the beneficiary of the largest account.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Markus Bernath: Papakonstantinou comes before special committee . In: The Standard . January 18, 2013
  2. ↑ a b Lagarde list of tax evaders: Ex-finance minister loses immunity . In: n-tv . July 16, 2013
  3. ↑ Jannis Papadimitriou: Athenians left shift with pitfalls . In: The Parliament . No. 7 to 9, February 9, 2015
  4. ^ Tobias Piller: Greece: First arrest warrant in Athens according to the Lagarde list . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . April 23, 2015
  5. ↑ David Böcking & Giorgos Christides: Plans of the Greek Government: This is how Syriza wants to get the money of the rich . In: Spiegel Online . February 12, 2015
  6. ↑ Boris Kálnoky, Dimitra Moutzouri: Three ex-ministers, Lagarde list becomes dangerous , Die Welt , March 7, 2013
  7. ↑ Eleftherotypia of December 17, 2014: "The Lagarde list sends Giannos into criminality" (Greek) enet.gr
  8. ^ Papandreou's mother under suspicion of black money , Der Standard , December 3, 2012
  9. ↑ Papandreou's mother is said to have stashed money in Switzerland , Der Spiegel , December 3, 2012