Trial set for suspected swindler

A 36-YEAR-OLD man was yesterday referred direct to trial in the Nicosia Assize Court after he was accused of posing as a financial investor and swindling almost €3 million from his ‘clients’.
Christos Efstathiou, who is expected to plead not guilty to 27 charges, has been accused of stealing €2,724,250 from various clients between September 2006 and July 2008. According to the charges the Kakopetria man told his ‘clients’ his could invest their money and managed to talk them into entrusting him with hundreds of thousands of euros.
Efstathiou was arrested at Paphos airport yesterday after returning from Canada where he had fled after his investors started asking for their money back. The court heard the 36-year-old had fled Cyprus through the occupied areas and had flown to Canada via Russia. The prosecution tried to use Efstathiou’s flight abroad as a reason to keep him in detention pending trial. But defence lawyer, Soteris Drakos, told the court his client had fled the country to escape his creditors and not the authorities because at the time there had been no case against him. He also said his client had returned to Cyprus to clear his name and was by no means a flight risk.
Nicosia district judge Lefteris Panteli agreed to release the accused on bail terms. He said Efstathiou had to sign a guarantee for €250,000 and that he had to find one guarantor for the same amount. The judge also ordered Efstathiou to appear at a police station three times a week, to immediately hand over his travel documents to authorities and to have his name added to the stop list.

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