During the 1980s, Greek Police Chief Nikon Arkoudeas (Νίκων Αρκουδέας) led an intense campaign against organized crime, which saw significant success.
Albanian criminal groups often export other immigrants to Greece, especially Middle Eastern and Pakistani shopkeepers, and control many nightclubs in the working-class districts of West Athens.
The Greek police have admitted that armed gangs entering the country from neighbouring Albania or Bulgaria could have been attracted by reports that many people have been withdrawing cash from banks and stashing it in their homes.
At the same time, flows from the Arab world and South Asia — mainly Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, and Pakistan — to Greece appear to have increased as well.
[12] Greece suffers from relatively high levels of tax evasion and political corruption, even though in recents years there has been considerable decrease.
[15] The OECD estimated in August 2009 that the size of the Greek black market to be around €65bn (equal to 25% of GDP), resulting each year in €20bn of unpaid taxes.
[16] This is a European record in relative terms, and in comparison almost twice as big as the German black market (estimated to be 15% of GDP).
[14] A study by researchers from the University of Chicago concluded that tax evasion in 2009 by self-employed professionals alone in Greece (accountants, dentists, lawyers, doctors, personal tutors and independent financial advisers) was €28 billion or 31% of the budget deficit that year.
[18] The former Finance Minister of Greece, Evangelos Venizelos, was quoted as saying "Around 15,000 individuals and companies owe the taxman 37 billion euros".
Up until 1981 (when Andreas Papandreou and his Panhellenic Socialist Movement party came to power), almost all senior officers of the Greek Gendarmerie and the Cities Police were inveterate right-wingers.