Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, has said his critics want to accuse him of treason for hacking Greek tax office records containing the file number of every taxpayer.
Varoufakis had been working on a contingency plan in case the European Central Bank cut off emergency funding to Greek banks, according to the Telegraph.
He told the Telegraph: "The context of all this is that they want to present me as a rogue finance minister, and have me indicted for treason. It is all part of an attempt to annul the first five months of this government and put it in the dustbin of history."
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Varoufakis told a group of investors in London that Tsipras had sanctioned plans to create an alternative way of funding the banks. Transcripts of that conversation, leaked to the Greek paper Kathimerini, show Varoufakis explaining that the secret cell had decided to hack government tax records after they came up against obstacles.
If successful, the plans would have enabled the finance ministry to make instant digital transfers in the form of IOUs. The parallel banking system was intended to allow the government to create euro liquidity without relying on the ECB.
"We decided to hack into my ministry’s own software programme," Varoufakis is reported to have said.
He explained that the preparations had to be secret because Greece’s European lenders had taken control of the public revenue office and could not be tipped off.
"It’s like the Inland Revenue in the UK being controlled by Brussels. I am sure as you are hearing these words your hair is standing on end," he reportedly said.
While Varoufakis had watched to switch to this alternative payment system after the Syriza party’s landslide electoral victory in February, he was overruled.
He said he was ready to activate the mechanism as soon as he received permission from Tsipras, but it never came.
ECB funding was cut after the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called a referendum on whether to implement austerity measures imposed by Brussels on June 29. It was reinstated once a deal had been brokered on further reforms.
