Former Greek football, basketball stars snared in $225 mn tax fraud probe

Former players on Greece's football and basketball squads are under investigation in an ongoing tax fraud case allegedly involving thousands of businesses and hundreds of millions of euros in debts to the state.

Euro 2004 football champion Pantelis Kafes and former basketball national team star Panagiotis Liadelis are among those under investigation, police files show.

Greek police on Tuesday said international warrants would be issued in the case of some suspects who are believed to have fled the country. Neither of the ex-sportsmen were among those whose detention had been ordered.

"Companies were opening and shutting down essentially at the point where debts to the Greek state were incurred," police spokeswoman Constantia Dimoglidou told the ERT state television.

Nearly 20 people were arrested in connection with the investigation last week.

The illicit racket allegedly recruited fictitious managers -- many of them cancer patients -- to front over 2,000 shell companies, many of which eventually went bust without paying tax.

According to a statement last week from the independent AADE state authority for public revenue, an "extensive network of front persons and ghost companies" had accumulated more than 203 million euros ($225 million) in unpaid tax and social security payments over the past three years.

The racket had connections in over 2,000 businesses including top nightclubs in Thessaloniki and the northern Halkidiki peninsula, a top travel destination.

A number of sweeping tax fraud investigations have been announced by the authorities as the country heads to elections by next spring.

In a separate case, officials are probing allegations of fraud and other crimes linked to a chain of bakeries, in a scam allegedly worth almost 100 million euros in unpaid taxes.