A prosecutor on Tuesday levelled criminal charges against the president and managing director of private television channel Alter, Constantinos Giannikos, for allegedly withholding 1.2 million euros in value-added tax from the state this year.

Alter, which filed for protection from its creditors in August under Article 99 of the bankruptcy law, is estimated to owe some 500 million euros, although the company says the debt is closer to 300 million euros.

A new financial police force set up in August has made significant progress with the help of the electronic crimes squad and the Finance Ministry’s financial crimes squad (SDOE), arresting dozens of entrepreneurs -including established and prominent business owners.

Apart from criminal charges brought against the president and managing director of private television channel Alter, police in Athens also arrested the 66-year-old manager of a food producer charged with withholding 1.24 million euros in taxes.

Meanwhile, officers in Thessaloniki nabbed the latest in a series of entrepreneurs in the northern port city linked to large-scale tax evasion. The 65-year-old owner of a wom en’s clothing producer in Thessaloniki was detained for allegedly withholding more than 750,000 euros from the state.

The financial police also has had significant success in tracing criminal rings believed to have swindled insurance firms and banks out of millions of euros. Three such rings have been broken since the force started operating in August, police said.

The police squad was set up this summer with the specific task of targeting tax dodgers and has been granted the power to obtain bank details as well as information about the stock market activities of anybody accused of evading payments.

The squad comprises 200 officers, 100 of whom have postgraduate degrees in finance, accounting or information technology.

Much of the team’s work is based on tips about suspected offenses provided by citizens calling the 11012 hotline. A total of 4,062 phone calls had been made to this number by Monday with around three-quarters of these tip-offs being made anonymously.

Source: Kathimerini