Folli Follie company founder, top execs get multiyear prison sentences

Five top executives of troubled jewelry maker Folli Follie were convicted to 10-17 years in jail by a three-member Court of Criminal Appeals in Athens on Thursday, for falsifying balance sheets and other financial offenses, ending a monthlong trial plagued by delays. 

The court imposed the longest sentence on the founder of the Folli Follie Group, Dimitris Koutsolioutsos, announcing a 17-year prison sentence for the 83-year-old defendant.

George Koutsolioutsos was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

A 10-year prison sentence was announced for his wife, Aikaterini Koutsolioutsou.

A request by the defence to suspend the sentences pending appeal was rejected, however Dimitris Koutsolioutsos and his wife will serve their sentence under house arrest.

For the two convicted associates of the Koutsolioutsos family, the sentences are 10 years in prison for an unnamed female executive and 15 years for Ioannis Begietis, former executive of the Asian branch of the company, who remains a fugitive. 

The sentences were announced a day after the court found five out of the 11 defendants in the trial guilty of forgeries, fraud, money laundering and other crimes. The other six defendants were cleared of all charges.

Koutsolioutsos and his family were also cleared of the offence of forming, directing and joining a criminal organisation, the most serious of the initial charges. 

The fraud involving the luxury jewelry maker erupted in 2018, after equity fund Quintessential Capital Management (QCM) issued a report saying the company had overstated the number of retail outlets it operates worldwide and raised concerns over its reported finances.

A 2020 audit report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, found that the company’s major shareholders, the Koutsolioutsos family, reaped the benefits of a well-orchestrated fraud scheme that lasted for at least 17 years, under the nose of the supervisory authorities, generating hundreds of millions of euros in profits.