By a Staff Reporter
A NICOSIA court has sentenced a 45-year-old Limassol woman to 12 months in prison after she was found guilty of issuing three dud cheques to a total value of £1,738,282.
Judge Leonidas Kalogyrou found Nelly Loutsiou guilty of writing dud cheques to stockbrokers Severis and Athienitis to obtain shares on the stock exchange in September, 1999.
“The offences of which the accused was found guilty are not related to Cyprus Stock Exchange problems, even though the three bounced cheques she issued were used to buy shares totalling £1,738,282. The offences clearly refer to issuing bounced cheques,” he said.
Four years ago Loutsiou had instructed the stockbrokers to acquire £1,738,282 worth of shares and wrote out three cheques for them. But the cheques were returned unpaid to Severis and Athienitis because there was insufficient money in the accused’s bank account.
“Bounced cheque offences are committed with ease because the banks issue chequebooks without first checking up on the beneficiaries’ financial strengths,” Kalogyrou said.
Loutsiou had not tried to sell the shares in order to honour the cheques, in the hope of reaping greater profits as the shares were then valued highly, so she only had herself to blame, the judge added.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
