Police operation busts N. Greece rackets

Page last updated at 06:36 GMT, Thursday, January 19, 2012 - 11:36 EST

eKathimerini:

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Fifty-three people, including a senior financial crimes investigator, bank employees, businessmen, a police officer and two lawyers, have been arrested within the past 24 hours in northern Greece as part of a major operation to shut down four interconnected gangs running extortion, loan-shark, fraud and money-laundering rackets, the Greek Police has reported.

According to investigators the rackets have been running as four separate but interconnected operations and are believed to have amassed a massive 43.5 million euros of ill-gotten gains over the past decade at least.

The case file put together by police offers investigating the case over the course of several months, and which was submitted to two Thessaloniki prosecutors on Wednesday, is 15,000 pages long and includes 3,500 transcripts of telephone conversations between suspects from police wiretaps.

Read the whole story: eKathimerini