News

ONGOING investigations into shady stock market (CSE) dealings have seen more and more listed companies implicated, as the Attorney-general’s dossiers grow heavier by the day.

In addition to the 36 CSE-related cases that Attorney-general Solon Nikitas says he has prosecuted, reports emerged yesterday that another 21 criminal investigations were under way. Meanwhile, the joint Watchdog and Finance committees have been holding successive meetings to monitor progress in the investigations.

Co-op investment companies have not escaped the scrutiny of auditors and investigators: yesterday press reports said the CSE-listed Lefkoniko and Demetra companies were under investigation on a string of counts, including outright embezzlement, withholding of information and cooking the books.

According to the same sources, the two companies have been instructed by the Securities & Exchange Commission to resubmit their accounts for 2003.

The Attorney-general has scheduled a meeting with the Watchdog and Finance Committees for tomorrow; the meeting is said to be critical to parliament’s final verdict on the 1999 stock market scandal that saw thousands of small investors lose their lifesavings.

Last week, a draft report concerning the 1999 stock bubble was described by MPs as containing “shocking” details about how investors were misled or defrauded.

The Attorney-general ’s office has come under fire in the past for delays in investigating, but claimed it was hampered by insufficient manpower and an antiquated law of evidence, which was recently amended and now ostensibly allows the introduction of hearsay evidence in court.

Five years after the “greatest fraud of the century,” no one person or listed company has been taken to court or suffered civil or criminal penalties.

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.