Members of the Greek media yesterday called our newsroom several times after MaltaToday carried news of a court hearing in which a Greek national was charged with fraud.
It transpired that Dimitros Drosos, the 42-year-old Greek national residing in Kappara pleading not guilty to misappropriating €500,000 is the same well-known sporting tycoon who fled Greece last December after owing “significant sums of money to various people in the sporting industry.”
“Drosos first bought an A2 division basketball team, Sporting of Athens,” a Greek journalist informed Business Today yesterday. “The team was promoted to A1, but never played, because Drosos abandoned it and invested in another basketball team: AEK. AEK is one of the most historical and popular teams in Greece.”
However, it seemed that AEK was facing financial trouble.
“Drosos declared last summer that he would make AEK great again, spending a significant amount of money. After season 2007-08 ended Drosos left AEK and decided to invest in PAOK, one more historical and popular team with financial troubles. Last January, though, Drosos abandoned PAOK too.”
The newspaper is informed that Greek sportsmen are owed significant amounts of money from Drosos after they were convinced to participate in investments by the accused.
“Drosos disappeared from the public scene towards the end of last year,” another Greek reporter said. “We only got to know of his whereabouts as the news of his arrest in Malta broke out.”
Before leaving Greece, the iGaming director “claimed that he faced a very serious medical problem and had to go to abroad to undergo brain surgery. Initially he said he was going to London, then in the USA. We never heard of him since.”
Drosos was last Saturday granted bail against a deposit of €70,000. The accused was hospitalised due to a medical condition, although we were informed that he was still under arrest until the time we went to print.
Police sources told this newspaper that they were asked to investigate the case following a report drawn by the LGA itself.
Prosecuting officer inspector Ivan Cilia requested that the provisions of the Money Laundering Act are applied against the accused.
