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Four people, including two ticket inspectors of the public transport in Athens and two printers were arrested by members of the internal affairs police department on charges of printing fake receipts for fines and invalid documents confirming the fines of passengers.

The charges are felony. The two ticket inspectors, aged 31 and 32, and one of the printers, aged 44, are accused of forgery, fraud and carelessness in professional duties. The second printer is accused of complicity in the crimes described. The judicial investigation of the case is underway.

According to the economic police, the activities of the fraudsters began in April 2013. The data collected so far make it clear that they have gained from the fines between 50,400 euro and 90, 720 euro, to the detriment of the public transport company.

The case was discovered on 20 June, when the two ticket inspectors imposed a fine of 72 euro on a 25-year-old woman who was in the bus without a ticket. She paid on the spot, as she was informed that she would pay half the fine if she paid it in this way. After receiving the money, the ticket inspectors gave her a document proving her offence and the fine imposed. The woman left, but forgot to take back her identification card, which she had previously given to the ticket inspectors.

In the afternoon she went to the headquarters of the public transport company to seek her identification card and showed the document issued by the ticket inspectors. Company representatives informed her that the receipt was fake, as the number of the ticket inspector indicated on it was not valid. The woman, however, recognized the two ticket inspectors who had imposed a fine on her as they were at their office at that moment.

During the subsequent investigation, the two employees were apprehended while performing their professional duties as bus drivers. They worked as ticket collectors at least twice a week of their own volition. By acting in the way they did in the case of the 25-year-old woman, they were able to illegally gain from 250 euro to 350 euro each time. In order not to be suspected at work they also issued legitimate receipts from the receipt books provided by the company.

When the 31-year-old ticket inspector found out that the woman had forgotten her identification card and the fraud was likely to be discovered, he burnt all books with fake receipts he had at his house as well as the personal document of his latest victim.

However, the police seized from him another double invoice book, one fake stamp that was used to confirm the halved fine, one small bottle of red ink, one triple invoice book, other documents of the public transport company, one ink pad for stamping, 24 fake documents to prove the violations and the fine imposed as well as a list of offences for the month of June 2014.

The items found on the other ticket inspector include one fake invoice book, an amount of 760 euro that, according to the police, he had collected from the illegally imposed fines. In the studio of one of the printers, the police found 339 fake forms of the public transport company for the imposition of fines and established that the identification card of the other printer was forged.