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Varoufakis facing treason charge for hacking accounts

The five-member workforce working with Varoufakis might face fees of being a part of a legal group.

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A Greek prosecutor has launched an investigation into whether any laws were violated after former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis revealed plans to hack into tax codes and create a parallel payment system, court officials said on Wednesday.

According to Greek newspaper Kathimerini, a third suit against Varoufakis is expected to be handed to parliament over his involvement in planning a potential parallel payments system which could have been used to remove Greece from the eurozone.

Mr Varoufakis confessed to the plans during a teleconference call with investors two weeks ago, soon after he had resigned his position in the Greek government.

One suit is from a Greek mayor, and the second is from Panayiotis Giannopoulos, a lawyer who wants to see Varoufakis tried for treason.

It was reported over the weekend that Varoufakis and former Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis had discussed a plan that involved raiding the Greek central bank’s reserves and hacking into taxpayer accounts in order to return to its old currency. Varoufakis has released a statement on his website denying that the working group was designed to advocate for exit from the euro, rather that is was supposed to draw up a plan in case an exit became inevitable.

However, the self-proclaimed “erratic Marxist” academic, in office until July 6, sought to play down the initiative as a contingency plan that had never been implemented.

Five different cases have been opened against the team Varoufakis put together to hack into taxation service files, including US economist, James K. Galbraith.

“On what Mr. Varoufakis has been saying, the allegations that the troika was controlling the Secretariat General of Public Revenues are false and unfounded”.

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Asimakopoulou told the Times: “The working assumption was that the government was operating all this time with the interest of keeping the country in the euro“.

Yanis Varoufakis