A man convicted of fraud and incitement to forgery against OSE was appointed as its “chief”

• The incompatibilities and absurdities in the career of the New Democracy–aligned union faction DAKE at OSE.
• He was Panagiotis Terezakis’s “right-hand man,” with an office next door. He was appointed to the Terezakis Committee, which was tasked with issuing the report on the Tempi crime.
• Before the Tempi tragedy, he met with Minister K. Ach. Karamanlis more frequently than OSE’s management.
• He is Head of the Inspection Department for the Athens Region, the Acharnes Railway Center (S.K.A.), and Corinth.
• In December 2024, he was elected as the employees’ representative on OSE’s Board of Directors.
• He is the president of the OSE Employees’ Union (SEO), and since September 22, 2025, he has been the elected president of the Panhellenic Federation of Railway Workers (POS).
• Yet, in 2021, he was convicted by the Athens Court of Appeals to a three-year suspended prison sentence for fraud and incitement to forge documents at the organization’s expense.
• The offenses were committed between 2004 and 2007, resulting in the loss of €220,000.

By Aris Chatzigeorgiou

Excellence at its peak. For four years now, a key figure in the Greek railway system has been weighed down by a three-year suspended prison sentence for fraud and incitement to forgery, imposed by the Athens Court of Appeals.

Vasilis Velaoras, the head of the New Democracy–aligned union faction DAKE at OSE, was convicted in 2021 of offenses against the organization. Despite this serious conviction, he managed to accumulate the following positions in the years that followed:

• He is the head of the inspection department for the Athens region, the Acharnes railway center (S.K.A.), and Corinth. He oversees the largest inspection division in the country with the highest passenger traffic, supervises hundreds of critical employees (stationmasters, technicians, signal operators, etc.), and manages corresponding budgets.
• In November 2023, he was appointed to a five-person committee at OSE by the then-CEO, Panagiotis Terezakis, to produce a report on the Tempi crime. The report, issued in August 2024, attributed the accident exclusively to mistakes made by the Larissa stationmaster and the deceased Intercity 62 train drivers. Evangelos Christogiannis, the chair of that committee, was recently appointed Deputy CEO of the new OSE after Terezakis’s removal.
• In December 2024, he ran for and won a position on OSE’s Board of Directors as the employees’ representative. However, he resigned just a few days later without providing a convincing explanation, citing the recent passage of the law for the new OSE and the impending change in management. However, the new OSE Board was not appointed for another nine months, and in the meantime, decisions were made without employee input.
• He was the “right-hand man” of former CEO Panagiotis Terezakis, who took office after the Tempi tragedy. His office was located right next to Terezakis’.
• He regularly interacted with the political leadership of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. Before the Tempi accident, he met with Minister K. Ach. Karamanlis more frequently than the OSE management. The train drivers’ union had sent formal warnings about potential accidents, but there was never time for a meeting with them.
• He is the president of the OSE Employees’ Union (SEO), the largest union in the railway sector.
• On September 22, 2025, he was elected president of the Pan-Hellenic Federation of Railway Workers (POS). POS now represents the unions of employees in the Athens and Thessaloniki metros, as well as the tram systems, at a secondary level.

Today, Data Journalists reveal Decision No. 777/2021 of the Athens Five-Member Court of Appeals for Felonies, which upheld the conviction of V. Velaoras. The case was originally tried in 2019, while the offenses against OSE were committed between 2004 and 2007. It is striking how many OSE employees, including senior officials who have served the organization, expressed ignorance regarding the existence of this decision to the undersigned.

Clearly, the court decision was filed away and never reviewed by management—or, more importantly, the government—which prides itself on evaluating public sector employees. It’s equally obvious that the conviction of the chief union official of the New Democracy–aligned DAKE faction was known at the highest levels and turned into a useful tool. In theory, a union representative is elected to speak for their colleagues, negotiate with management and the government, and not shy away from conflict. However, how can someone challenge or exert pressure when the “opposing side” knows they are facing an individual convicted of fraud and aiding and abetting forgery —serious offenses that can result in permanent dismissal in the public sector?

Conversely, it is evident that V. Velaoras’s position was solidified following the Tempi tragedy. He was chosen as one of the authors of OSE’s internal report on the accident, which is evidence of this. The report closely followed the government’s narrative of human error. It focused only on the easiest targets—the Larissa stationmaster and train drivers who had already lost their lives—and did not implicate other individuals who might have insight into the situation on February 28, 2023. The report will also be discussed in the upcoming trial regarding the Tempi accident, where conflicting viewpoints and interests will clash in court. But who will safeguard OSE’s credibility when it’s revealed that one of the report’s authors has criminal convictions?

Whenever the government discusses Tempi, it either blames human error entirely or admits that “public sector pathologies” are also to blame. But what exactly are these “pathologies”? Where did they originate? How were they cultivated? And who still allows them to exist? Is it due to a lack of evaluation? The impunity? Or officials who are both controlled and controllers? Or the “privileges of union leaders,” as New Democracy used to say before the New Democracy–aligned DAKE faction took over? V. Velaoras’s case seems to be a true personification of the public sector’s pathologies. New Democracy bears full responsibility for it.

Kostis Hatzidakis and “their own children”

Paradoxically, the responsibility of New Democracy for the convicted individual, who remains a “key figure” in the Greek railway system, is highlighted by the party’s vice president and government vice president, Kostis Hatzidakis. On his personal website (https://khatzidakis.gr/), Mr. Hatzidakis maintains a post featuring an interview he gave shortly after the Tempi tragedy on April 2, 2023. In the interview, Mr. Hatzidakis discusses his experience as Minister of Transport, appointed in September 2007, and talks about the corruption and scandals he encountered at OSE. He emphasizes that he was particularly shocked by “the corruption scandals combined with the railway’s safety issues.”

At that time, the Greek railway system was rocked by two scandals involving DAKE officials. One scandal involved “black carriages” carrying undeclared cargo, and the other involved the sale of OSE scrap metal (old iron). According to today’s court ruling, V. Velaoras was the main operator in the scrap metal scandal. Although the decision was issued in 2021, in an interview given in April 2023, K. Hatzidakis states:

“Before I presented the recovery program in spring 2008, the scrap metal scandal emerged. The scrap refers to OSE’s old iron, and the contract specified how, to whom, and under what terms the scrap would be disposed of. As soon as the contract was signed, certain opportunists left the last page as it was—between OSE and the counterparty—but they altered the content of the earlier pages for their own reasons, presumably to make money. They took the contract from a cupboard, kept the last page, and altered the earlier pages. An internal audit was conducted, and I referred the matter to the judiciary. Among those involved was a New Democracy-affiliated unionist. Of course, I did not back down because, as I later said in Parliament, I did not enter politics to cover up for thieves.”

One wonders if Mr. Hatzidakis knew that this particular unionist remained at OSE and assumed a key position. Does he consider his actions justified now that the individuals he referred to the judiciary are the ones who drafted the report on the Tempi accident?

Decision No. 777/2021 of the Athens Five-Member Court of Appeals for Felonies: “How €220,000 Disappeared”

Let’s take a look at how the court describes the OSE scrap scandal based on information revealed by data journalists.

• The Court of Appeals issued its decision in July 2021, two years after the initial ruling.
• The acts examined were “fraud committed jointly and repeatedly over €150,000” and “incitement to forgery over €150,000” against OSE.
• OSE was represented at the trial by lawyer Vasilis Katsafados, as in the first instance, since under the civil code, OSE was entitled to monetary compensation for the moral harm it suffered due to the impact that these criminal acts had on the credibility and prestige of its officials.
• The incident took place at EDISY, the National Railway Infrastructure Manager that operated from 2004 to 2007 as an OSE subsidiary responsible for operating, managing, and utilizing railway infrastructure. EDISY was also in charge of disposing of obsolete railway materials, such as old carriages and other iron materials no longer in use that were left abandoned at various locations, as still occurs today. Disposal was carried out through a competitive bidding process—open and public for large quantities and informal for smaller amounts.
• The local offices in regions where the obsolete materials were stored prepared a record specifying the quantity and type of scrap. They sent this record to the Material Movement Control Department (ELDY), which reported to the Supply Directorate (DEF)/Warehouse Service (YAP) of EDISY. In 2007, Vasilis Velaoras was the head of both the ELDY Department and the Supply Directorate/Warehouse Service.
• “It has been proven that the aforementioned defendant, taking advantage of his position, which gave him exclusive authority over the disposal of the aforementioned obsolete materials, conducted informal tenders instead of the required open ones during the period in question. He disposed of quantities of obsolete materials far exceeding those specified in each announcement and used award documents and contracts that were skillfully falsified.”
• The forgery was carried out as follows: First, he informed the CEO of EDISY that a specific quantity of obsolete material was to be disposed of. Then, the CEO prepared and signed an Award Recommendation Note and Disposal Contract in favor of a company that met the relevant requirements. However, the details of the materials were listed on the first page of these documents. The first page was then removed and replaced with a page showing a much larger quantity and higher value of materials. Another employee carried out this forgery under the convicted individual’s direction and instruction. The altered contract was then sent to the relevant departments for execution with the CEO’s signature. The result of these actions was that the falsely stated final quantity and value of the disposed materials exceeded the CEO’s approval authority and required board approval, which was never obtained. Meanwhile, the winning bidder received a much larger quantity than stated but paid EDISY the price corresponding to the smaller original quantity. Five cases of fraud were documented to obtain an “illegal financial benefit,” which consisted of “the consideration corresponding to each additional quantity disposed of.”
• In a May 25, 2007 document regarding the disposal of 200 tons of scrap through an informal tender, the quantity was changed to 1,200 tons. This change required an open tender and approval by the Board of Directors. For accounting purposes, the OSE Factory in Piraeus sent two delivery documents to the Finance Directorate: one for 133.5 tons and another for 687.4 tons. However, the defendant only submitted the document for the smaller quantity and concealed the other. Consequently, the scrap buyer paid only €6,676 for the 133.5 tons, and EDISY lost €34,368 for the remaining quantity.
• In a document dated January 19, 2007, regarding the disposal of 200 tons, a total of 940.82 tons were actually disposed of. For accounting purposes, the factory sent a delivery protocol for 940.82 tons, but the defendant replaced it with a receipt corresponding to only 200 tons. The winning bidder paid €11,600 for the 200 tons and €42,967.56 for the remaining 740.82 tons, but the latter amount disappeared.
• In a document dated April 20, 2005, approval was given for the disposal of 200 tons. However, the disposal should not have proceeded with that specific bidder since they did not hold a permit to manage solid waste. OSE collected €10,050 (the value of 200 tons), but lost €30,941 because an additional 618.82 tons were sold.
• In an award document dated November 13, 2004, a delivery note was issued for 300 tons, valued at €16,333.15. However, the winning bidder received a total of 1,405.66 tons, resulting in a loss of €59,712.67 for the remaining 1,096.32 tons.
• In another contract dated May 9, 2005, although approval had been granted for the disposal of 2,000 tons, a total of 2,193.78 tons were disposed of. The defendant falsely claimed that only 1,107.36 tons were sold, resulting in a loss of €54,320, which corresponds to the remaining 1,086.4 tons.
• “The result of these actions was to provide the aforementioned contractors/bidders with an illegal financial benefit amounting to €220,509.23…” The defendant’s involvement in these acts is indisputably proven by the findings of the EDISY Committee for the Investigation of Disposal Contract Files of Obsolete Materials and the testimony of prosecution witnesses, including the General Director of Infrastructure of OSE, the Director of Financial Services, the Chair of the aforementioned committee, and the General Director of OSE from 2007 to 2010. No other evidence contradicts these findings.
• The defendant claimed that the loss of €34,368 in the May 25, 2007 case was invalid because OSE collected €37,500 in July 2008. However, this claim was rejected because the collection occurred much later, after the competent authorities had already begun investigating irregularities in the weighbridges and ordered financial audits.
• Based on the above, the prosecutor proposed a sentence of three years’ imprisonment for fraud and an additional three years for incitement to forgery. However, the Court of Appeals sentenced him to two years for fraud and two years for incitement to forgery, plus €500 in court costs. The total prison sentence was set at three years. However, the court suspended the sentence’s execution because his criminal record showed that he had not previously received a definitive sentence exceeding one year. Furthermore, based on “the investigation of the circumstances,” “his previous life and character,” “his conduct after committing the acts,” “the remorse he showed,” and “his willingness to remedy their consequences,” the court determined that “executing the sentence is not necessary to prevent him from committing other criminal acts.”

Mr. Velaoras declined to make a statement or comment

Data Journalists reached out to Mr. Velaoras, who refused to provide a statement or comment. According to unverifiable reports, the OSE Disciplinary Board dealt with the case and imposed a four-month salary deduction. Other reports indicate that an appeal has been filed to have the decision heard by the Supreme Court. However, it is unclear whether a hearing has been scheduled, despite nearly four and a half years having passed.