A member of Greece's Laimos family who claimed 10 years ago to be investing $700m in shipping projects was arrested in Athens last week, after years in hiding from fraud and forgery convictions accumulating to 33 years in jail.
Greek police announced on 7 November they had taken a 54-year-old citizen who was on the run from four separate court rulings against him.
The statement did not name the person, in line with standard Greek police policy to not identify apprehended individuals.
Several press reports and a police source contacted by TradeWinds, however, said the man in question is Spyros P Laimos.
US equity fund
Laimos made headlines in 2009 as the brain behind Financier Investment Group (FIG) — an equity fund that reportedly lined up $1.2bn from investors, mainly in the US, to invest in shipping, real estate and insurance.
Laimos originates from the island of Oinousses and is a distant relative to a number of Lemos family members still active in shipping today. His late father, Panagos Laimos, who spelled his name differently from the rest of the shipping clan, headed UK-based shipping company Laimos Brothers in the 1970s.
TradeWinds reported as far back as in 2009 how projects FIG was allegedly pursuing fell apart, causing business partners to jump ship.
It has now emerged that at least some of these partners and investors took Laimos to court, eventually securing a string of fraud and forgery convictions against him.
The sums he is believed to have misappropriated are estimated to run to six-digit dollar figures.
'Stuff of movies'
“It’s the stuff of movies,” one of Laimos’ victims told TradeWinds on condition of anonymity. “He would flaunt his family’s name and show up with bodyguards in expensive black limousines to impress people and lure them into investing with him. He would never follow up on projects he claimed to be pursuing and money invested with him would just disappear."
Another person who met Laimos in 2009, remembers how the financier tried to dispel the doubts that started emerging about his credibility.
“He reached into his pocket and showed me a $100m cheque, allegedly made out to him by a big American bank,” said the source, who doubted whether the cheque was real. “Totally crazy!”
One reason Laimos may have been so convincing to some of the people he approached, is that he appeared to genuinely believe in his own stories. “It seemed to me as if he was living in his own fiction,” said a third person who dealt with him.
Little relief
News of his arrest, 10 years after these events took place and about five years after the court convictions against him, is not much of a relief to his victims.
“There’s nothing left for us in terms of compensation,” said one of the three people TradeWinds spoke with. “He has nothing in the bank, we’ve looked into that years ago,” he said.
Some were surprised by the arrest and wonder what happened to spur Greek police into action after such a long time.
Shortly after Laimos' final conviction, the second person TradeWinds spoke with visited the police station in the seaside Athens suburb where Laimos was believed to be staying, to urge local cops to go out, find and arrest him.
“They told me I was watching too many police movies,” he said.
All Greek did at the time to apprehend Laimos was to attach a legal notice on a wall at his last known place of residence. He then went off the grid.
The time that has elapsed since has blunted much of victims’ raw feelings against him. “It's so many years ago. Thinking back about the whole business, I only blame myself for how stupid I was to believe in what he was saying,” one of them said.
Laimos was walking his dog when he was arrested, Greek websites reported. He asked the police officers not to say anything to his family.
