The great Greek wiretapping affair

On March 9, 2005 an engineer working for the Greek branch of Vodafone was found dead in his apartment. The next day, the chairman of Vodafone informed the Greek Prime Minister that his telephones, and those of the members of his government and other important people in the country had been tapped. And that was only the beginning… The story of this, probably the greatest phone hacking scandal in Europe, which occurred many years ago, is not widely known – something we will try to amend. Read on.

The mysterious death of an engineer

Costas Tsalikidis worked for the Greek branch of Vodafone for 11 years. From the beginning of his career, he was responsible for planning the architecture of the Company’s GSM, GPRS and UMTS networks. In February 2005, he allegedly handed in his resignation, but his employers persuaded him not to leave. On March 9, 2005, he was found dead in his apartment, with all the evidence pointing to suicide by hanging. His death coincided with the disclosure of the greatest phone hacking scandal in Greece, and probably also in Europe.

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