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«Laurentios Laurentiadis has openly started a plan aimed at draining huge loans from the companies created by people working in his companies in order to be granted loans with no guarantees and coverage by Proton Bank, through deceiving the supervisory authorities and the other stakeholders. These loans were used for all other purposes, not for the purposes which they have been granted for.

Laurentiadis has committed fraud, which is a felony, as he has misled other shareholders of the bank and the competent supervisory authorities, by hiding from them basic data related to granting the loans, which under normal conditions would have led to non granting those loans or to a different credit risk assessment."

This was attributed by Proton Bank’s new management to the former majority shareholder of the bank Laurentios Laurentiadis in an extensive complaint filed a few days ago in the Athens prosecutor's office. In the document the management of Proton Bank describes Laurentiadis as "a leading figure in the group involved in a criminal activity". Also a number of "fraudulent, illegal, harmful activities" of Laurentiadis and 8 other members of the old Board of directors of the financial institution are pointed out. At the same time a number of cases have been reported of interference by Laurentiadis in the internal control procedures of the Bank in order for the illegal operations not to be discovered.

The complaint report, of the new management of Proton Bank, consisting of 35 pages, was filed on 3^rd of January, 2012 in the Athens prosecutor's office. The document requires that Laurentiadis and his accomplices be "punished for edification", indicating that the new management of Proton Bank will appear as a civil plaintiff in the case because of the property damage caused to the bank worth 200 million euro. The report of the new management of Proton Bank contains a number of new details on the case, including serious allegations of Laurentiadis and his associates.

As noted in the document "Laurentiadis has created a mechanism through which he has achieved the approval of large loans to companies which were directly or indirectly connected with himself, and thus has served his own interests to the detriment not only of the old Proton, but also of today's new bank as its successor. In particular, the authorities have found that in 2010 until the first half of 2011, Proton Bank had granted loans to newly established, local or offshore companies, mainly aimed at purchasing subsidiaries of Alapis and Elfe. The common features of these operations are the hasty, shortened procedures deviated from the internal rules of the bank. In many cases these loans were granted to companies established on the same day or several days previously, which naturally were not engaged in any business activity".

The document continues further "Laurentios Laurentiadis played a crucial role in implementing the above plan who with the help of his advisers, assistants and other parties involved, intervened in the procedure for approval of loans by replacing senior staff of Proton with some of his trusted people who, in some cases, were former employees of his companies".

Particularly interesting is what was stated in the report regarding the overcoming of the internal control of Proton Bank by Laurentiadis and his associates.

As noted, "Despite having updated rules and six employees, and despite the fact that in 2008 and 2009 it has carried out inspections in the "Corporate Banking "and "Private Banking" departments with a rather fair and proper presentation of the credit risk, the "Internal audits" department had also been significantly weakened through the changes and personnel shifts made from March 2010 until January 2011, leading to the deterioration of the quality of its activities and inadequate credit risk assessment. In this way the "Corporate Banking" department, despite the considerable size of its portfolio, was not included in the control activities of the "Internal audits Department".

Finally, the paragraph, in which it has been noted that, "beyond any doubt all of them, against whom the claim was filed, had been united by a common goal - through criminal activity including fraud and abuse, to work to the detriment of both Proton Bank which was in liquidation, and our bank. Laurentios Laurentiadis was a key figure in this group, he was the one who led the organization from the outset", is indicative of the style of the complaint - report and the attitudes towards Laurentiadis.