New revelations about fugitive facing more than 120 years in prison, from VAT fraud to arrest in Lamia

For nearly three decades, he slipped through the hands of Greek authorities. He changed locations, allegedly used different identities and stayed out of prison despite a string of heavy convictions. His long disappearance ended in a quiet apartment in Lamia.

The 66-year-old man from Thessaloniki, whose name had been tied to a scandal involving fictitious VAT refunds, was arrested there after police traced him to the city. He had reportedly bought the apartment in December 2025, near the centre of Lamia on Papaflessa Street, and registered it in the name of his 27-year-old wife, who is from Panama.

He presented himself as a man of substantial wealth, with property in northern Greece. After he demanded an excessive rent from a tenant, the tenant refused to pay and moved out. The apartment was later renovated, and the man periodically stayed there with his young wife. Police arrested him at the property on Monday morning, August 31.

The case reaches back to the early 2000s, when Thessaloniki was shaken by a scheme involving illegal VAT refunds. Fictitious companies, sometimes placed in the names of drug users or homeless people, allegedly appeared to conduct intra-European Union transactions and collected huge tax refunds for exports that never took place. According to the case material, hundreds of billions of drachmas were paid for nonexistent exports.

From 1999, the man allegedly reported fake exports of photographic paper to Bulgaria alongside his legitimate trading activity. He later allegedly created shell companies to claim even larger refunds. The account also says he worked directly with a network of corrupt tax officials who approved illegal payments. His name appeared for years in the records of serious criminal courts, alongside dozens of convictions.