(MENAFN- AFP) The former chief executive of the Greece's Hellenic Postbank (TT) mired in an unsecured loans scandal has been arrested in Turkey, Greek police said on Saturday.An arrest warrant against Angelos Filippidis was turned into an international one on Friday, and Turkish authorities tracked down and arrested him in Istanbul the same day, in cooperation with Greek authorities. Four people including a prominent businessman have already been arrested in Greece in a probe launched by the anti-corruption magistrate delving into a deficit of several million euros allegedly detected in TT.Filippidis's lawyer, Thanassis Varlamis, told an AFP reporter that the ex-CEO of TT appeared before a Turkish magistrate on Saturday and asked to return to his country in order to face questioning. "My client showed an air-ticket he had already issued on Friday for an Athens-bound flight scheduled for Monday," he said. Filippidis has previously denied any wrongdoing.
"All the loans were issued with unanimous decisions by the board and all the procedures were respected," Filippidis told Skai Radio on Thursday."If I could turn back time, I would issue them again today," he said.He also claimed that the Hellenic Postbank's bad-loan ratio was far lower than that of other bigger Greek banks.The state-run Athens News Agency said that according to judicial documents, the losses are said to exceed 400 million euros ($549 million).An unsecured loan is particularly advantageous to the borrower since no guarantee or collateral is required.Greek authorities have begun getting tough on corruption, bringing to light the extent of fraud before the economy collapsed in 2010.A minor but well-capitalised lender, Hellenic Postbank took a serious blow in 2012 from a restructuring of Greek sovereign debt.Its shares were suspended last summer after a run by shareholders following statements from the finance minister that the bank had become "unsustainable".It was eventually absorbed by Eurobank, one of Greece's four biggest banks.The Greek banking sector underwent radical restructuring and consolidation last year under the terms of the country's bailout deal with the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
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