Mareva Grabowski-Mitsotaki responds after name appears in Paradise Papers

Mareva Grabowski Mitsotaki, the spouse of conservative New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has issued a statement after her name appeared in a list of 130 Greeks on the so-called Paradise Papers. 

In the list, Mitsotaki appears to be the manager of a mutual fund based in the Cayman Islands. 

However, in a statement published in Ethnos newspaper on Wednesday, she said had little do the with administrative aspects of the fund as she was not on its managing board. 

The fact that Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing LP was the fund's trustee and JP Morgan London the cooperating bank essentially had guaranteed that the required transparency regulations were being honored and anti-money laundering checks conducted, she said. Further, the activities of the mutual fund, which was active between June 2010 and June 2012, were checked by chartered accountants. 

In her statement, Mitsotaki said she had never used the banking sector to hide her legitimate professional activities. 

As for allegations of suspicious transactions, she stressed that she had little to with the administrative aspect of the fund and was not aware of the specific legislation that applies in the Cayman Islands, noting that a legal firm handled those issues. The fund's closure was a "purely investment-related decision due to losses accumulated by the investors" and had nothing to do with elections in Greece, she wrote.  

As for any insinuations of her spouse's involvement, she noted that it was well-known the pair had been separated at the time.