Municipality of Athens: the modus operandi of the gang of municipal employees – The extortions, the fees, and the suspicious persons

The “mafia” of municipal employees in Athens, which, in collaboration with private individuals, provided protection to shopkeepers in the capital, extorting them, with no compensation, had the organization and “structure” of a criminal organization, with “brains”, a “cashier”, a “collector” and a driver.

The -three-month-long- investigation by the Internal Affairs Service of the Security Corps led to the dismantling of the criminal ring and 14 arrests, all of which were made last Friday afternoon, July 5.

The 14 arrested, seven men and seven women, with greater or lesser roles in the hierarchy and activities of the organization, are accused of a host of offences related to directing and joining a criminal organization, and are also charged with bribery, forgery, bribery, breach of official secrecy and breach of official duty on a professional and repeated basis, violation of the law on weapons and narcotics, false statements, complicity in bribery and a number of other offences.

Among the 14 people arrested, the names of an employee of the Municipal Police Department of the Municipality of Athens, an employee of the Building Department, an employee of the Service of Modern Monuments and Technical Works of Attica, Eastern Central Greece and Cyclades stand out, employees of the Directorate of Sanitary Control and Environmental Hygiene of the Regional Unit of the Central Sector of Athens, as well as an employee of the Directorate of Sanitary Control and Environmental Hygiene of the Regional Unit of the Northern Sector of Athens, while two private individuals, a resident of Argyroupoli and a resident of Athens, appear to be the “brains” of the organization.

The case file, which was formed, reportedly includes nine other civil servants, who assisted the criminal organization, but without having permanent participation in it and for this reason they were not arrested, in the context of the autopsy.

The “tangle” of uncovering the illegal activities of the gang began to unravel from a complaint filed on April 12 last year. As it emerged from the comprehensive investigation, the criminal organization was active in extortion of owners of health shops, bribes and bribery of public officials contrary to their duties, violations of official secrecy, false certificates and forgery, with the purpose of obtaining illegal amounts of money. The case was “tied up” by police officers of the Security Corps Internal Affairs Service, who recorded conversations of the arrested persons and collected evidence, after discreetly placing them under surveillance.

How the organization operated

Specifically as to how the organization operated, its executives approached shopkeepers mainly in the Athens area, to whom they offered and provided protection to prevent damage to their business, mainly by preventing the confirmation of violations by civil servants who were members of the criminal organization.

To this end, they indoctrinated the public officials to carry out targeted inspections of their shops on their instructions in order to coerce the owners to seek the protection of the organisation.

In addition, some owners of shops, hotels and buildings in general, knowing the activity of the criminal organisation and its capabilities, sought on their own initiative to seek its ‘services’ in order either to avoid the confirmation of infringements or to settle other issues that fell within the competence of public services and related to their businesses.

In order to achieve the organisation’s objective, the managers approached and recruited employees serving in public services responsible for the control of health establishments, hotels and construction work (municipalities, municipal police, building services, health control directorates, the Ministry of Culture, etc.), who played a key role in the operation of the organisation, as it was impossible for it to develop its illegal activity without their assistance.

Specifically, the employees, due to their position in the public sector, knew and provided the managers of the organization with information concerning upcoming inspections of shops and subsequently they informed their shopkeepers-clients, so that they would always be prepared for the inspection, correcting any common violations (table seating, smoking, music, etc.).

In addition, public officials received sums of money in order not to certify established infringements or to put them on file or to certify less serious infringements than the actual ones, as well as to falsely certify facts in public documents, thus proceeding to the illegal issuance of licences and other documents relating to the operation of the establishments. Many times, in order to serve the organization, officials did not go to carry out the required inspections, and then falsely compiled reports that they had carried them out properly.

Characteristic of the employees’ disdain for their job is the fact that they received direct orders from the organization’s managers to target specific stores for targeted inspections, even for specific violations they were supposed to witness during their inspections. This choice was deliberately made in order to intimidate and coerce shopkeepers into turning to the organisation, paying sums of money for their protection and the bribery of public officials, as well as for the repayment of any sums owed to the organisation.

In cases where shopkeepers did not agree to join the organization’s protection, their managers would threaten them that their businesses would be checked again and violations would be confirmed, and if they still did not give in to the threat, they would then instruct the relevant member officials to carry out the relevant checks, as mentioned above.

Also, when employees who were not members of the organization were creating problems by taking actions that were detrimental to the stores under its protection, managers would discuss whether it would serve the organization’s purposes to change their position in the agency.

With regard to the amount of money paid by the shop owners, this was agreed with the managers, depending on the type of shop, the past infringements that had been established against it and, by extension, the degree of difficulty for the organisation to achieve the prevention of the establishment of infringements. The sums of money were usually received from the shopkeepers by members of the organisation who had assumed the role of the collector-treasurer and then handed over to the managers, who, after dividing the profits among themselves, made part of the money available for bribing public officials and other members of the organisation.

Moreover, it is worth mentioning that the criminal organization was taking measures to prevent its activities from being noticed. In particular, during their face-to-face meetings, either with civil servants or shopkeepers, but also with each other, the members of the group were very careful not to be noticed by the law enforcement authorities and other persons who might suspect their illegal activity.

Furthermore, when transacting money between members of the organization, they showed great care in choosing the location of their meetings, which were usually of short duration. Especially when paying civil servants, some meetings lasted a few seconds and took place either outdoors, so as to appear random, or indoors where it would be impossible for anyone to see them (shop toilets, cars, etc.), and they would watch the place for any “suspicious” persons.

It is also noteworthy that, when informing shopkeepers of upcoming inspections, they instructed them to deliberately allow some negligible violation to be witnessed, so that other shopkeepers and uninvolved public officials (or local government elected officials) would not be aware that they had been informed of the inspection.

In addition, in addition to their conventional telephone conversations, they used internet applications for their communications and coordination of their illegal activities, thus concealing the content of their conversations and details regarding their activities. Particular attention was paid to conversations with public officials, in which they avoided mentioning amounts of money and always instructed them to speak either in person or through web applications, where as an additional protection measure they used messages that were automatically deleted after a time limit.

Regarding the financial benefit gained by the criminal organization and the subsequent distribution of the illegal profits to its members, it was discovered that the owners of the health shops paid the members of the criminal organization, amounts of money ranging from 6.000 to 16,000 euros per year, depending on their type, whether they had past offences, and generally depending on the difficulties they would face in protecting themselves from upcoming inspections by the public authorities.

Still, the owners of the kiosks paid 1,500 euros per year, while cases were also discerned where owners of shops, hotels and other buildings, either completed or under construction, from 1,000 to 35,000 euros per case of illegal action or omission by the public officials – members of the organization (failure to certify violations, drafting false certificates, illegal filing of documents, undue influence on councils for the issuance of permits).

The above sums of money were then distributed among the members of the criminal organisation and in particular the civil servants received indicatively the following amounts for their illegal activity:

➢ Employee of the Municipal Police: from 3,000 to 6,000 euros per store, per year.
➢ Building services employee: from 1,000 to 2,500 euros, per case.
➢ Officials of Sanitary Inspection Departments: from 250 to 2,000 euros per case.
➢ Employees of the Ministry of Culture: from EUR 6,000 to EUR 10,000 per case.

6,000 to 10,000 cases from 6 to 10,000 cases.
During the investigation of the Service, at least 47 cases (of shops of sanitary interest, kiosks, hotels) were detected, highlighting the illegal activity of the criminal organization. From the collected preliminary investigation material it is estimated that the total benefit of the organization per year exceeds the amount of 700,000 euros.

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