The Nottingham Forest owner, Evangelos Marinakis, has been charged with drug trafficking in a heroin smuggling case that has shocked Greece.
Late on Friday the Greek public prosecutor, Eirini Tziva, accused the shipowner businessman of what were described as “very serious charges” following a three-year investigation into the Noor 1, a tanker intercepted in the port of Piraeus carrying 2.1 tonnes of heroin in 2014.
Marinakis, 50, was also charged with financing an illegal operation. Three of his close associates were named with him on the charge sheet.
The judicial inquiry had followed the money, focusing on bank transfers that had raised suspicion. Court sources were quoted as saying that several money transfers had been linked to the impounded vessel and probably used to finance it.
Marinakis, in a midnight statement carried in Ta Nea, the daily newspaper he owns, furiously denied the accusations, saying: “The recent judicial action is a deliberate attempt at character assassination. The allegations are fabricated and without any foundation in law or fact. It is a deliberate plot that has long been in the making and as such it is not only offensive, but quite simply criminal … I have never had anything whatsoever to do with the acts for which an investigative inquiry is apparently set to be restarted. It is clear to me that the results of any new investigation will confirm my innocence.” He ended the robust defence declaring: “I will not compromise, I will not capitulate, nor will I succumb to their dirty plan.”
The statement was also carried on the website of Olympiakos, the Greek champions, whom Marinakis also owns. Ta Nea itself has been fiercely critical of Alexis Tsipras’s leftist-led government.
The severity of the charges are such that Tziva ordered an investigating magistrate, specialised in cases of corruption, to also handle the affair. The prosecutor said the inquiry should be expanded to include other possible criminal acts including fuel smuggling and money laundering. Greek media said a travel ban had also been levelled against the accused. Marinakis was not believed to be in Greece but abroad when the charges were formally announced.
This is not the businessman’s first brush with the law. In 2015 he was acquitted of complicity in a match-fixing network whose web extended across seven countries. In that case charges were brought after Uefa detected a pattern of irregular betting in the countries. The magnate, who bought Nottingham Forest 10 months ago in a £50m takeover, attributed those charges to “jealous” critics bent on blighting his Greek team’s winning streak. “Of course I cannot stop our opponents talking or bad-mouthing,” he said.
• This article was amended on 24 March 2018 to take in Evangelos Marinakis’s statement
