Statute-barred debts of €34 million to Rhodes Municipality: Special Pre-trial Division takes over investigation
The case file concerning debts of approximately €34 million that have become statute-barred is returned to the Rhodes Prosecutor's Office due to delays by the municipality in submitting documents.
Rhodes Municipality: Special Pre-trial Division takes on investigation into €34 million statute-barred debts
The Special Pre-trial Division of the Rhodes Court of First Instance is now taking on the judicial investigation into statute-barred debts of approximately 34 million euros owed to Rhodes Municipality, according to Dikastiko.gr. This transfer became necessary because the municipality failed to submit in a timely manner the crucial documents that had been requested during the preliminary examination stage, with the result that the case file was returned to the Prosecutor's Office.
The Special Pre-trial Division is expected to proceed with witness examinations during the current month. The focus of the investigation centres on potential criminal charges for embezzlement and breach of duty.
The case came to light last February through a publication by the newspaper 'Democratiki', which revealed that thousands of debts to the municipality had become statute-barred due to a failure to timely exercise enforcement measures over an extended period. The prosecutorial order that followed, which became public in April, requested the municipality to identify which deputy mayors for Finance exercised managerial responsibility from 2015 to 2025, so that specific responsibilities could be assigned to elected officials and civil servants.
In early 2026, the total registered debts to Rhodes Municipality amounted to 78.5 million euros. Of these, 44 million concerned arrears up to 2020, whilst the remaining 34.5 million correspond to the five-year period 2021–2025.
The municipality's new administrative leadership has already begun implementing a series of measures to recover revenue. Approximately 28,800 individual notices have been sent to debtors, 1,600 orders have been issued for freezing tax clearance certificates for debts exceeding 300 euros, and electronic garnishments have been imposed. At the same time, the municipality is handling debt settlements and permanent write-offs of debts deemed impossible to collect and dating from before 2005.
Source: Dikastiko.gr