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An investigation of the Office for Combating Economic Crimes revealed huge tax evasion including rentals of luxury villas, the incomes of which have not been declared. This trick works mainly on cosmopolitan islands and undeclared incomes amount to millions of euro.

Since June 2012, when the investigation began, to date more than 3,000 transactions for renting luxury villas have been checked and at least 500 cases of illegal incomes have been discovered. The majority of cases are in Mykonos, Paros, Patmos and Kefalonia. Checks are continuing, and their purpose is to discover "grey" incomes from all means of illegal rental.

Checks of the Office for Combating Economic Crimes revealed that:

- Renting of real estate happens primarily through the Internet and foreign real estate agencies which carry out illegal and "invisible" transactions. Owners of luxury homes advertise them on the international market, uploading announcements for the rental on Greek and foreign websites for real estate. There are dozens of Greek and foreign websites where similar advertisements for houses for rent have been discovered, which in many cases also offer hotel services.

- Housing of up to 600 m2 is rented out to foreigners and Greeks at prices ranging from 300 to 10,000 euro per day. These are illegal earnings which are not taxed, said a representative of the Office.

- Villas are lent without a special work sign which is granted by the Greek Tourism Organization - something foreigners do not know, as well as without issuing legal payment documents.

- Most cases of renting are for a week and are presented as guests being on a visit. In reality, however, these are tourist packages that are booked through travel agencies abroad. Usually, the advance payment of the rent is transferred to bank accounts abroad without issuing a payment document in any of the cases. In this way, owners manage to gain significant revenues without declaring them to tax authorities and without paying the state even a euro in taxes. The Office for Combating Economic Crimes is already investigating bank accounts, in order to discover undeclared transactions.

- Dozens of houses are declared to tax authorities as empty, i.e. unoccupied. However, through data of the Greek electricity company DEI and the public water supply company, the Office has revealed a high electricity and water consumption mainly during the summer months.

- Many luxury homes which are for rent are declared to the tax office as rural houses with false data in terms of building costs and area and in this way owners pay small amounts for the special tax on homes which is paid together with electricity bills.