GREECE Trends and Developments Contributed by: Ovvadias S. Namias, Vasileios Petropoulos, Ilias Spyropoulos and Emmanouil V. Apostolakis, Ovvadias S. Namias Law Firm
years and a fine of up to 1,000 daily units shall be imposed. This act shall lapse after 20 years. The offence of fraud was always prosecuted ex officio until the entry into force of the new GCC in 2019. The new GCC stipulated that the prosecution of the offence of fraud in paragraph 1 required the filing of a complaint within three months of the time when the person (ie, natu - ral person or entity) immediately affected by the offence became aware of the commission of the act. This statutory provision created many dif - ficulties for persons filing complaints as dam - aged persons, particularly in cases where the crime had evidentiary difficulties and was of a cross-border nature. Therefore, and following criticism from the scientific side, a legislative change was recently made with Law 5090/2024, and the crime of fraud is once again prosecuted ex officio. This provision entered into force on 1 July 2024. Of great interest and significant practical value is Article 405 paragraph 2 GCC, according to which the crime of fraud is eliminated if the per - petrator, of their own free will and prior to their first examination as a suspect or an accused, completely satisfies the injured party without unlawful harm to a third party. Just partial sat - isfaction eliminates the offence only in the rel - evant part. Similar is paragraph 3 of Article 405, according to which the perpetrator of the crime of fraud (until the irrevocable referral to the court) is exempt from any penalty if they completely satisfy the injured party by paying the principal and interest on arrears, as proven, from the day the crime was committed. Given the regulatory framework of the offence of fraud, the usual ways in which this offence is committed in the field of cryptocurrencies include fake cryptocurrency exchanges or
wallets, the provision of unreliable investment advice for a fee, and even cases of exit scams, where cryptocurrency projects or platforms may start out as legitimate but later exit the market with investors’ funds, either by abruptly shutting down operations or by gradually siphoning off funds from the project. The Issue of Asset Tracing General remarks In the context of cross-border fraud and cyber - crime/cyberfraud, the approach of the Greek legal order (in line with the common approach of almost all legal orders internationally) to this type of criminal phenomenon follows both axes of the “follow the money” doctrine. Οn the one hand, it establishes a strict complementary framework for money laundering (preceded by fraud); on the other hand, it establishes the institutions of asset recovery for “dirty” assets. Asset recovery is the procedure initiated by the authorities when an offence has been committed from which an illegal pecuniary benefit has been derived, with the aim of recovering this from the perpetrator’s property through confiscation. The stages of recovery are numerous and distinct, comprising: • financial investigations identifying the pro - ceeds of crime (usually through the lifting of banking secrecy and the transnational exchange of information); • the freezing of the confiscated assets and their placing under administration in order to prevent their value from decreasing during the pendency of the proceedings; and • finally, the stage of confiscation and the assets being returned to the victims of the crime.
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