Police have described how tax evasion was carried out at Pizza Fan in their announcement on dismantling what they called a criminal organisation.
Prosecutors have brought charges for serious felonies in the case. The 23 people arrested, including the company’s founder, face the following charges, as applicable:
- Forming, joining and leading a criminal organisation.
- Tax evasion of more than €150,000 through failure to remit VAT and the filing of inaccurate income tax returns.
- Direct complicity in these offences.
- Particularly aggravated money laundering of proceeds from criminal activity.
The company allegedly failed to remit at least €25 million in VAT to the state from 2022 onwards.
Based on the findings of the investigation, the Directorate for Combating Organised Crime launched a large-scale operation in which 23 people were arrested, including the company’s founder and owner, senior executives, accountants and software developers.
The case will be assigned to an investigating judge, before whom the accused will give their statements.
Police statement
The Directorate for Combating Organised Crime has dismantled a criminal organisation whose members allegedly developed an organised tax-evasion mechanism by failing to issue receipts for orders placed at food-service outlets.
To bring their activities to an end, police officers from the Sub-Directorate for the Prosecution of Financial Crimes carried out a co-ordinated operation yesterday, Thursday 22 October 2026, at offices, shops and homes in areas of Attica and Thessaloniki. A total of -23- members of the organisation were arrested, including the alleged leader.
The case file against them includes charges of, as applicable, forming a criminal organisation, money laundering of proceeds from criminal activity, violations of the Code of Tax Procedure and weapons offences. It also names -109- other individuals who have been identified.
The investigation began on the orders of a prosecutor following a complaint about possible violations of labour, social security and tax legislation at outlets in a food-service chain.
The months-long, thorough investigation by the Sub-Directorate for the Prosecution of Financial Crimes, in co-operation with the Independent Authority for Public Revenue and with assistance from the Intelligence and Special Operations Sub-Directorate of the Directorate for Combating Organised Crime and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, established how the organisation operated.
Investigators found that, from at least 2016, the accused had formed and joined an operationally structured organisation with an ongoing presence, with the aim of committing felony-level tax evasion on income and Value Added Tax (VAT) by interfering with the order-taking system and the issuing of retail receipts through the Electronic Invoicing Service Provider (ΥΠΑΗΕΣ).
This enabled the company’s franchise outlets, in some cases, not to issue tax receipts (Α.Λ.Π.) for orders received, fulfilled and delivered to customers.
More specifically, the organisation allegedly used special software that enabled outlets in the network to complete orders without issuing the required receipts.
Customers’ orders were entered into the central ordering system and forwarded to the relevant outlets for fulfilment. When an order was completed, the system gave the employee the option of issuing a receipt for payment by cash or card, or cancelling the order.
However, for certain orders selected by a special algorithm, an additional function called “on the house” appeared, allowing the transaction to be completed without issuing the corresponding tax receipt.
At the same time, orders for which no receipt was issued continued to be recorded in the central system, allowing members of the organisation to track the outlets’ actual revenue and calculate the amounts concealed from the tax authorities.
In this way, according to the investigation, some of the actual turnover of the outlets involved was concealed, resulting in the failure to pay the taxes due.
The organisation’s leaders arranged for the illicit proceeds to be transferred in cash, with appropriate security measures in place, and handed over at monthly meetings attended by members of the organisation in a specific room in a shopping centre. The network’s financial performance was also presented and monitored there in relation to the organisation’s illegal activities.
The financial investigation found that the organisation’s leader owned 0.01% of the Greek company, while the remaining 99.99% belonged to a company based abroad, whose actual owners were the leader and deputy leader of the criminal group.
This enabled the failure to pay taxes to the Greek state and the use of the financial system to place and move large sums of money generated by the Greek company.
Investigators also established the role of each member of the organisation. Specifically:
- A 68-year-old man, owner and manager of the franchise company operating the outlets, was the organisation’s leader. He managed and was responsible for the company and shaped the organisation’s structure.
- A 51-year-old man, owner of a company based abroad that owned the 68-year-old’s company, was the organisation’s deputy leader and its main operational manager, serving as finance director.
- A 57-year-old man, the company’s operations director, acted as the link between the leaders and the outlets, with responsibility for co-ordination and supervision and for operating the illicit mechanism. He also handled customer complaints, relayed the leaders’ instructions to outlet managers, dealt with financial and operational issues, and warned of upcoming inspections.
- A 51-year-old man, the company’s IT director and administrator of its ordering information system, was responsible for the mechanism’s technical operations.
- A 37-year-old man, who worked in the company’s accounts department and also managed an outlet, was responsible for recording, monitoring, allocating, collecting and transferring the illicit proceeds.
- A 47-year-old man had a role in the financial monitoring and management of the illicit mechanism and in putting it into operation.
- A 40-year-old man, manager of two company outlets, had a role in the mechanism’s illegal operation.
- A 43-year-old man managed outlets in Thessaloniki and served as an outlet inspector in areas across Greece. He was fully aware of how the illicit mechanism operated.
- A 44-year-old man, who served as an outlet inspector, communicated with the leaders, relayed instructions and co-ordinated the mechanism’s operation.
Searches at offices, outlets and homes resulted in the discovery and seizure of:
- €1,288,732.60,
- 52 computer units,
- a tax-register device,
- 6 luxury cars and -3- motorbikes,
- 92 luxury watches and items of jewellery, and
- a large number of notes, mobile phones, USB sticks, tablets, laptops and hard drives.
Based on the investigations carried out so far, the financial loss suffered by the Greek state as a result of the organisation’s activities from 2016 to 2026, due to the failure to pay the taxes due on income and VAT, is estimated to exceed €35,000,000, while the concealed tax base exceeds €150,000,000.
The seized money will be sent to the Consignments and Loans Fund, while the seized digital evidence will be sent to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations for forensic examination.
Procedures have also been initiated to freeze the assets of the individuals and legal entities involved, following a request from the Directorate for Combating Organised Crime to the Authority for Combating Money Laundering. A total of -108- audit reports for 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 were also drawn up and sent to the Independent Authority for Public Revenue to determine the taxes lost and calculate the scale of the tax evasion.