Filippos Kampouris, his wife, and their nine co-defendants — including accountants and alleged front men — delivered lengthy testimonies before the 6th regular investigating judge in Athens from early Sunday morning, October 11. The defendants face a serious indictment covering charges of criminal organization, fraud, and money laundering. By the time proceedings were still underway, the LAOS party leader and his wife had already completed their testimonies. The defendants were arrested as part of a major Hellenic Police (ELAS) operation targeting an alleged criminal organization that — according to the charges — defrauded EFKA (Greece’s social security authority) and the state through a series of shell companies, causing total damages exceeding €5 million to the public.
Read: Kampouris case: “They owe me around €2,500 — I couldn’t even pay my rent,” says former employee
Filippos Kampouris: “Failing to pay contributions and taxes is not the same as fraud”
Kampouris and his wife, who are alleged to have played leading roles in the scheme, appear to be mounting a primarily legal defense against the serious charges brought against them. Specifically, the defendants reportedly argue that failing to pay the required social security contributions and taxes does not in itself constitute the criminal offense of fraud.
Filippos Kampouris reportedly claimed that his work did not involve accounting or tax management for companies, and that he had no say in whether insurance contributions or tax obligations were paid. “Those matters were handled by the relevant accountants, whose guidance I relied upon when processing the documents I was asked to sign,” he is said to have stated in his testimony.
His wife, for her part, reportedly argued that “my involvement with the businesses was limited to actual work duties, including secretarial and organizational support, staff supervision, and customer service.”
Accountants point the finger at the couple
The accountants named as co-defendants reportedly shifted the blame squarely onto Kampouris and his wife. “At my accounting office, he repeatedly and insistently demanded information in order to file tax returns — such as bank account statements — and we reached the point of ‘threatening’ that we would not submit the tax returns unless they provided the appropriate documents, namely the bank account statements, because we could not file the financial statements or the tax return based on false and inaccurate data,” one of the accused accountants reportedly told the investigating judge.
He also argued that records from the lifting of telephone privacy show no communication between him and any of the co-defendants beyond his own office associates. “How is it possible that I am a member of a criminal organization when I have had no communication whatsoever with the alleged ringleaders, accomplices, or members since 2024?” the accused accountant reportedly asked.
Another co-defendant accountant explained to the judge that the professional relationship had broken down during 2023 and 2024, “when he stopped meeting his monthly financial obligations to my accounting firm and we had ceased maintaining the accounting books and records for his companies.”
That defendant submitted to the judge an email sent to Filippos Kampouris and his associates containing “all the TAXIS access codes for the companies he had oversight of, given that he was not paying the monthly fee for maintaining the books and records of those companies, which amounted to a total of €1,350.”
What the so-called “flip-flopper” was expected to say
By 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, October 11, five testimonies had been completed, with six more still pending. One of Filippos Kampouris’s associates, allegedly serving as a front man and known by the nickname “flip-flopper” (kolotoumbas), was expected to tell the investigating judge that he had no knowledge of or involvement in any administrative or tax-related matters.
Later that same day, a decision from the investigating judge and prosecutor was expected regarding the criminal treatment of the defendants in this high-profile case.
