The illegal surveillance scandal that has shaken Greece since 2022 came to light when it emerged that a sweeping monitoring operation had been quietly underway between 2020 and 2022.
During that period, senior government officials, political strategists, prosecutors, journalists, and business figures were placed under surveillance by the National Intelligence Service (EYP), which reports directly to the Prime Minister’s Office. Running alongside this state-led monitoring was a separate but tightly connected operation involving the Predator spyware system, deployed by EYP in cooperation with private actors whose role remains at the center of ongoing judicial investigations and political controversy.
On Friday, the case took a significant turn. For the first time, Stamatis Trimbalis - the man who for 5 years appeared as the official representative of Krikel, one of the companies at the heart of the wiretapping affair - told an Athens court that he had served merely as a “front man” for defendant Yiannis Lavranos. His statement is the first public acknowledgment of the company’s true chain of control, despite Krikel having secured multiple contracts with Greece’s national police.
The trial centers on four business figures, including Lavranos, described as Krikel’s real owner, and Felix Bitzios, Tal Dilian, and Sara Hamou of Intellexa, the consortium associated with the development and deployment of the Predator spyware system. Intellexa has been implicated in widespread allegations of illegal surveillance that have drawn international concern over democratic safeguards and the misuse of spyware within the European Union.
Trimbalis, a civil engineer, said he met Lavranos and Bitzios in 2019, the year he entered Krikel as an employee - a position he held until April 2024. Though presented publicly as the company’s legal representative, he said he did not initially grasp the responsibilities that title carried. He acknowledged signing contracts with the police but insisted he had no real decision-making authority.
He described a climate of fear after the first media reports exposed the surveillance scheme. According to his testimony, people in the defendants’ orbit tried to reassure him, telling him that “as long as the ruling New Democracy party is in power, we have nothing to fear.” He added that when he asked Lavranos about Intellexa and the spyware network, Lavranos refused to respond.
Trimbalis also offered a striking account of his appearance before the Greek Parliament’s inquiry committee, claiming he had been given both the questions and the pre-approved answers in advance by Lavranos and a close associate. “When I finished, they called me and said, ‘Good, you handled it well,’” he testified, explaining why his earlier parliamentary statements omitted the revelations he is now making in court.
His credibility, however, came under immediate attack from Lavranos’s defense team. They pointed out that in an earlier statement to a deputy prosecutor of the Supreme Court, he had insisted he was Krikel’s legitimate representative and unaware of any connection between Lavranos and the company. Trimbalis said fear had motivated his earlier testimony, stressing, “These people are ruthless,” and adding that he remains afraid even today.
Asked whether the company’s fines had prompted him to change his account, he said that was not the only factor and that he had believed the ordeal was over for him. “If I had made millions out of this, do you think I’d still be here?” he said pointedly.
He also revealed that when police searches were carried out at the homes of those involved, he and others were warned in advance by Lavranos himself.
The trial is set to resume on Tuesday.
