Anastasios Giamouridis, a business partner of Bill Papas, in documents filed in the Federal Court said that he “did not know of, nor participated in a sheme,” concerning the alleged fraud of Forum Group issuing fake invoices, The Australian reports.
Mr Giamouridis, whose statement comes as an attempt to avoid paying 10m refund for the manufacture of food digestion machines, confirmed being a 1 per cent shareholder in Mazcon, Bill Papas’ business, which Westpac alleged of receiving funds from the fraud.
The bank supports that Mr Papas and Vincenzo Tesoriero were allegedly masterminds of a lease contract scheme. Westpac claims that Mr Papas used part of the funds for his waste disposal business Iugis, which according to the Australian, he planned to grow into a $1bn business focused on disposal technology and food digestion machines.
Mazcon was also involved in the purchase of Greek football team Xanthi, by Mr Papas, in a 15m deal and Giamouridis was for a short period, chief executive of the team. Westpac claims that Mr Papas purchased many properties, companies and a football team, in a move funded by him sending millions to Greece.
The bank claims that Mr Giamouridis received millions in order to manufacture and store thousands of waste digestion machines for Bill Papas. The answer from Mr Giamouridis’ lawyers came in the court, mentioning that “he denies receiving payments from (Forum Group) which he had no legitimate basis to receive.”
“The funds were used to acquire assets, namely prototypes for food digesters and food digests, but not to acquire the jointly owned real property nor the Tesoriero real property,” they wrote.
Westpac earlier claimed Mr Giamouridis received some $10.7m from Forum between June 2019 and December 2020. In his defense, he answered that he had “no notice that the funds were fraudulent obtained … nor that the funds were infected with any wrongdoing.”
Source: The Australian
