Commission in the amount of 2% of the loan amount, in the event of a positive development of lending to the new “client”, the 50-year-old protected witness promised in Novartis case “Maximos Sarafis” and two of his accomplices arrested by the security police for fraud and money laundering.

Yesterday, the prosecutor’s office opened a criminal case against them. They have been given a deadline and are expected to apologize to the investigator on Saturday.

The defendants deliberately avoided talking openly about the case over the phone, however, according to the case file, compromising evidence on Maximo Sarafi appeared due to a conversation with his friend, during which he allegedly confessed to fraud.

“I believe that now the money will come. If it weren’t for the hard times, I would have received a lot of money,” Maximos Sarafis said, according to the case file, with his friendly face, referring to Dubai.

“Fortunately, the lawyers still haven’t responded, but this allows me to arrange a couple of advances,” Maximos Sarafis reportedly noted, adding that he needs liquidity as there will be problems “if this happens.” it turns out that Dubai is fucked up. “No, others don’t know,” his friendly face is heard, and “Maximo Sarafi” replies: “They don’t know, no… I’ll tell them…”.

Emirates “bait” scam

As written in today’s card “K”, The 50-year-old protected witness in the Novartis case is described by police as the central figure in the scam. He appeared as a business consultant, manager of a company based on Panepistimi street in the center of Athens. Through his social and professional circle, he identified businessmen who could not get loans from domestic banks and deceived them.

He introduced himself as a representative in Greece of a non-existent company based in the United Arab Emirates, under the trade name Zahrat Commercial Brokers LLC. To add credibility to the scam, he presented two of his accomplices as purportedly Emirates experts. These are two men aged 62 and 65. They told their victims that they previously lived in the Emirates and worked for the defunct Zahrat Commercial Brokers LLC. Thanks to this experience, they pretended that they could broker immediate loans, while forging the documents of a criminal organization. Moreover, fake seals, signature impressions, etc. were found on them.

The profit of the organization was the remuneration “Maximos Sarafis” for preparing and applying for a loan, insuring the proposed loan, as well as the estimated taxes that they had to pay to the authorities of the Emirates.

Company stamp

In order to mislead their victims, they set up front UAE-based insurance companies (eg Gotrans Technical Services, Capital Gate Technical Services, etc.) into whose bank accounts they invited their victims to deposit money. In the event that their victims suspected they had been scammed, the defendants allegedly held conferences with alleged Zahrat leaders or showed videos showing the perpetrators with alleged Zahrat leaders.

In the first phase of the investigation, the authorities identified seven victims from whom the perpetrators extorted a total sum of 800,000 euros. We are talking about the owner of a hotel in the center of Athens, a cheese merchant, as well as entrepreneurs from the catering and tourism sectors. It is estimated that the number of victims of Maximo Sarafi and his accomplices is much higher. In addition, during searches in the offices and homes of the accused, documents were found that indicated the trade names of another 15 companies.

However, through lawyer Konstantinos Gogos, he denies the accusations and claims that he is a victim of a political conflict between New Democracy and SYRIZA because of his involvement in the Novartis case. The case also involves an Indian citizen, as well as two other people, whose identity has not been established.