Usury and Crimes

ΕΥΠ Τούρκοι Εμπρηστές

Usury and Crimes – Crimes with… interest. An interview of Detective Pelekasis Nikos to the newspaper “espresso“.

Two atrocious crimes with four people dead, dozens of suicides of respectable businessmen and thousands of family dramas, which unfold daily behind the closed doors of homes and shops, have been caused in just a few days by the terrifying rise of usury. Threats, blackmail and beatings are enough to make the fortunes of millions change hands from one day to the next. Borrowers are driven to desperation and unconditionally handed over to the lenders. And when the knot reaches its end, they either end their lives and the torture of bleeding or they paint their hands with blood and shock the nation, which watches in stupefaction the dramatic end of the episodes of a red circle, where the perpetrator becomes the victim…

Most people have been forced and are forced to resort to borrowing from loan sharks because of the severe financial difficulties they face, as debts choke them. The financial crisis has dried up liquidity in the market.

As a result, many businessmen and ordinary workers turn to people who willingly give them money to facilitate them and then… suck their blood!

A few days ago, a seaside tavern in Eretria was stained with the blood of three men when a 54-year-old businessman from Evia opened fire on them. According to what he claimed both in his statement to the police authorities and to the judicial officials, the massacre that ‘froze’ the country took place because he could no longer stand the financial drain of a large loan sharking ring. “They had… drunk my blood and they wouldn’t stop at anything. They wanted to destroy me. At the age of 54, I became a murderer to escape the torment and save my family from destruction,” the killer claimed and added: “I had reached desperation and was forced to borrow the sum of forty-four thousand euros from the father of one of the victims. The interest, however, was exorbitant. I had already been foreclosed on two houses and they wanted to confiscate my car as well.

In fact, the businessman had filed six lawsuits in the last five years against certain persons for usury, extortion and threats. About a year ago, when unknown persons had gone to the car wash he runs in the centre of Chalkida and started shooting in the air for intimidation, he came to Athens and illegally bought a pistol, as he says he feared for his life. It was with this pistol that he caused the carnage.

After the triple murder of Eretria and before the blood of the victims had time to dry, it was revealed that the dismembered corpse that had been found on May 18 in a garbage bin in the area of Petralona belonged to a 70-year-old woman, who was allegedly a loan shark.

They borrow on predatory terms to make ends meet.

Truck driver could not withstand the pressure and died of a heart attack on the steering wheel.

According to what the president of the Borrowers Association Thanos Thanopoulos told “Espresso of Sunday”, “lately, when the banks stopped giving money and the spigot was closed, the whole world turns to loan sharks in order to be able to borrow and make ends meet, even for a while. Thus, the disaster begins. In the last few months the phenomenon has grown out of control.

Every day hundreds of people from all over Greece complain to us about their drama.

Suicides due to debt are on the rise and the longer the time goes by, the worse it gets. On Friday, a businessman in Kalamata who was involved with loan sharks attempted suicide,” he said: “Some time ago, a truck driver, while on his way to Germany, received so much pressure and blackmail on his mobile phone from loan sharks that they would kill his wife and children, that he could not stand it and died at the wheel from a heart attack. In fact, he needed 32,000 euros to bring his body here and bury it, and because there was no money, it was cremated by the municipality of Nuremberg in Germany.”

As he revealed, after a comprehensive study carried out by the special secretary of the Ministry of Justice and legal expert Marinos Skandamis on usury, “the professional profile of the perpetrators was revealed: pensioners (20.14%), traders (33.33%), freelancers (33.33%), public and private employees (6.60%) and income earners (6.60%). As regards the profile of the victims, they are: traders (50%), self-employed (37.5%) and public and private employees (6.25%)”.

The interest rates at which loan sharks lend are literally predatory. At best they are in the 20% range, but there are worse ones, reaching and exceeding 100%. As people who are victims reveal to Mr Thanopoulos, the interest rate is determined according to the money needs of the borrower. The greater the need, the higher the interest rate. “And they all end up in disaster.

Usury is now an organised crime. These are unscrupulous people,” he concluded.

A businesswoman from Kifissia also fell into the hands of such people, who, as private investigator Socrates Stratis revealed, “borrowed about 11 million drachmas in 2000 and until recently was still paying. When she gave them everything, then they beat her up savagely. In fact, a complaint has been filed against a certain person at the Agios Panteleimon Police Station for the beating. They threatened her that they would kill her brother. A few months after the beating, when her brother received his pension and lump sum, he disappeared. Three years have passed since the day she disappeared and she is still missing. I have taken over the investigation to track him down and everything points to a loan sharking ring.”

Another case of usury is also being investigated by Detective Nicholas Pelekasis, who, he said: “A businessman has been caught in the net of usury, who is financially ruined and is being blackmailed. The people threatening him are ruthless. They had lent him 300,000 euros at 40% interest,” he said, and concluded: “We are trying to gather all the evidence and send it to the justice system in an attempt to save both him and dozens of people.”
JULI STARIDA

Usury and Crimes – Crimes with … interest. An interview of Detective Nikos Pelekasis in the newspaper “espresso”.