Thessaloniki towing racketeers face the dock

At least 16 people, including four tugboat owners, have been charged with setting up a racket at Thessaloniki port that illegally certified tugboats and handed out lucrative projects.

The suspects allegedly increased the price of towing ships to the port of Thessaloniki and they are also believed to have created an informal cartel in 2016 in order to exclude a towage company which had been operating at the port at the time but was eventually led to bankruptcy.

According to estimates, the profits made by the racket, which was unraveled after a year-long investigation, were in the tens of millions of euros.

Among those implicated is a high-ranking official of the Thessaloniki Port Authority.