A HIGH-PROFILE businessman and his associate were yesterday remanded in custody for seven days in connection with property fraud worth €6.0 million.
Lambros Christofi and his associate Giorgos Constantinou were arrested on Thursday.
Both deny any connection to the alleged fraud.
The remand hearing took place on Friday, but the court reserved its decision until yesterday.
Police told the court that the suspects stole €6.0 million using their position as executive directors of a company, Advantage Capital holdings Plc.
Christofi is the founder of the Christofi Group, which is currently involved – according to its website – in many industries including finance, real estate management and development as well as food and beverage outlets.
Among the group’s business interests are Burger King, Coffee Beanery, Madison’s Mall, and ilSportivo gym.
In real estate, the group is involved in the Plaza project, “a new theme of projects of 176,000 square metres”.
“The building costs of this project are estimated at over €300 million. The total value of the project exceeds the €1 billion mark,” according to the website.
Christofi and Constantinou are, among other things, accused of forging a document to make it look they had lawfully collected the money for a property transaction with Larnaca businessman Lefteris Milos.
Milos told police that in December 2009, he had signed an agreement to sell to a subsidiary of Advantage Capital, land worth €25 million, the court heard.
He was convinced to get another subsidiary company of the suspects – Fesforo – transferred to his name, to use it to sell the land.
Later that month, Milos travelled to Greece to deliver the title deeds and collect his cheques but he was told that the person who had the cheques was absent.
He became suspicious and discovered that there was an additional clause in the document he signed on December that had been added without him knowing.
The clause referred to another sales document which Milos was not aware of.
The sales document, dated June 1, 2009, said that the Greek subsidiary had already agreed to buy the land and pay a €6.0 million deposit.
The Greek subsidiary had already paid Advantage the €6.0 million deposit on two separate instances on May and June 2009, the court heard.
Instead of giving that sum to the complainant, the money allegedly ended up in their personal accounts, or their own person in the form of cash and cheques and parts of it used to pay off Advantages’ loans and buy shares, the court heard.
