Trickiest Frauds Of All Times

One fine day in 1979, a young man appeared on the streets of Athens. His name was Gsorgios Koskotas, he returned from America with his wife and four children. He had no money, that's for sure. Koskotas was born in 1954, at the age of sixteen he moved to the USA with his parents. "Georgios is an extremely ambitious person," said Katya's wife about him. "He constantly comes up with something."

Once, a student at Koskotas ordered a bunch of official letterheads from New York University at a print shop. When they asked for an explanation, the young man said that he simply wanted to play fellow students by sending them orders for expulsion. However, the university had a different opinion: he wanted to use the forms for forgery. Koskotas was arrested, fined $ 200, expelled from the university. Georgios went to work as a house painter. But even here, the Greek managed to break the law. Using fake documents, he tried to get social insurance money for illegal artists. In 1980, the US government in absentia accused him of stealing $ 40,000 from the state treasury. Koskotas at that time was already working in a modest position in a small Athenian bank.

In Greece, he managed to make a career as fast as a mysterious one. In just a few years, Koskotas became not only the owner of 85 percent of the shares of the Cretan Bank and its president, but also one of the richest people in Greece. Grammy Publishing Company (five magazines and three newspapers), a radio station, Olympiakos football club ... They said about Koskotas: they would soon buy up the whole country!

Where does the money come from? The secret was revealed in the fall of 1988, when the judicial authorities accused Koskotas of large financial frauds - from embezzlement to violation of the rules of foreign exchange transactions. The audit showed that 210 million dollars disappeared from the bank's safes. Life is rich in surprises. Who would have thought that the head of the Cretan bank and the newspaper tycoon were a clever swindler and a desperate adventurer? Koskotas was forbidden to leave the country for the duration of the investigation. In Greece, not only financial, but also political scandal flared up around this scam, as the outgoing sociable banker was friends with many political figures.

Georgios Koskotas went on the counterattack, threatening to publish "revealing documents" about the transfer by a number of government officials of large dollar amounts to accounts in an American bank. But the documents were never presented to them. To previous accusations against Koskotas, an attempt to blackmail the government was added. A round-the-clock surveillance was established behind the banker's house and the Grammy company. More than forty special agents in civilian clothes followed his every move.

Soon a rumor spread through Athens: the swindler disappeared. Some said that the disgraced banker in South America, others - that he was killed. When, in the presence of witnesses, the door of his office was opened, the eyes of the police and journalists waiting to see the corpse saw such a picture: on the table - an unfinished glass of orange juice, open newspapers, the chair was slightly pushed back, as if the owner had left the room for a short while and was about to return. But Koskotas himself, alas, did not wait. He really disappeared. This caused no less sensation than the fact of accusing him of fraud. Koskotas prepared the escape in advance: he sold his newspaper, and sent his family to Switzerland.

With sharp criticism of the government fell both left and right parties. The opposition demanded to explain why government agencies used the services of a private Cretan bank, instead of holding money in a state bank in Greece.