George Koskotas

Former banker and publisher George Koskotas (Γιώργος Κοσκωτάς), spearheaded a financial scandal that brought down the government in 1989.

Koskotas, the former CEO of the Bank of Crete and publisher of an Athens daily, was incarcerated on an embezzlement conviction after a shortfall of 132 million dollars was discovered in the bank.

In the months that followed, Koskotas, who had by then fled to the United States, claimed that the late prime minister and PASOK party founder Andreas Papandreou ordered state companies to deposit funds with the bank, and took bribes from stolen money. The allegations resulted in the resignations of several ministers and demands for a vote of no confidence in the government. Mr. Papandreou, who died in 1996, was cleared of all charges by a special court in 1992 and was re-elected in 1993.

Koskotas was arrested on November 23, 1988, in Massachusetts, and was jailed in the United States until his extradition to Greece in 1991.

He was paroled and will be released from prison on March 16, 2001. He had served 12 years of a 25-year sentence for embezzlement, forgery and obstruction of justice felonies. Barred from leaving the country, Koskotas had also been ordered to report to an Athens police precinct twice a month.