Cyprus holding company’s €1.5m dividend examined in Greek Pizza Fan investigation

Nicosia, Cyprus. A dividend of €1.5 million paid to a holding company registered in Cyprus is being examined in Greece’s expanding Pizza Fan investigation. Greek authorities now estimate tax losses at more than €35 million and have widened their inquiry to cover 2016–2026, rather than the initially reported starting year of 2022.

Dividend transfers and ownership

Greek media reports citing investigative evidence say the Greek operating business transferred a dividend covering profits for 2022, 2023 and 2024 to a bank account in Cyprus in August. About €1.34 million was subsequently moved from that account into an account jointly held by founder Konstantinos Antaras and his wife, according to the reports.

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The underlying banking records have not been independently checked. Neither paying a dividend nor transferring funds to Cyprus establishes wrongdoing on its own; investigators still have to determine whether these transactions have any connection to the suspected scheme.

Fanatics Pizza Deliveries and Food Services Limited, the holding company based in Nicosia, was incorporated in 2004. It holds 15,760 shares out of the Greek company’s total of 15,763, equivalent to approximately 99.98 per cent. An extract from the Cyprus corporate registry dated October 22 lists Antaras with a 90 per cent stake and Dimitrios Iliopoulos with the other 10 per cent.

In an October 23 statement, the Hellenic Police said the suspected operation’s alleged leaders exercised beneficial control over a company based abroad that owned nearly all of the Greek business. Police said investigators were examining related movements of money.

The police have also requested that Greece’s anti-money-laundering authority begin procedures for freezing assets held by the individuals and legal entities involved. There has been no confirmation of an asset freeze affecting the Cyprus company.

Tax estimates and arrests

The October 23 police statement put the estimated VAT and income tax losses to Greece above €35 million. At the outset of the investigation, the reported figure was €25 million in VAT.

Police estimate that concealed taxable sales or other amounts subject to tax exceeded €150 million during the decade under review. Those figures remain preliminary findings from the investigation, rather than final assessments of tax liabilities.

Greek police said they had arrested 23 people and identified another 109 in the case file. They reported seizing cash exceeding €1.28 million and drawing up 108 inspection reports for 2023–2026, which were forwarded to Greece’s tax authority for assessment.

Ordering disruption and company response

Informal discussions about a possible takeover have emerged concerning the chain’s shuttered restaurant network, while the immediate operational difficulties remain unresolved.

Pizza Fan restaurants have not been able to accept orders since last Thursday, following investigators’ seizure of equipment linked to the central ordering system. Greek labour officials confirmed that the business had not been closed by an administrative order and that employees’ contracts had not been terminated. Re-establishing a working ordering system nevertheless remains a practical barrier to resuming operations.

In its response on Friday, Pizza Fan suggested that extensive promotions offering free products might have created confusion in the calculation of sales. The company promised cooperation with investigators and said reopening its network, safeguarding franchise partners and protecting more than 2,500 employees were its priorities.

According to Pizza Fan, wages paid annually throughout the network total more than €36 million, while social insurance contributions exceed €9 million.