Jailed Suphire boss has appeal rejected

HIGH-PROFILE stockbroker Yiannos Andronikou, jailed for seven years for stealing almost £5 million, had his appeal rejected by the Supreme Court yesterday.

Andronikou, owner of Suphire Securities & Financial Services, had been sentenced to seven years in jail after being found guilty of the theft of £4.88 million from a pension fund belonging to the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) fund and concealment.

The offences were committed between 2003 and 2005, when EAC auditors found out that official stock market figures on the fund’s portfolio for the year did not match up to those provided by Suphire.

It later became apparent that Suphire had invested the sums from the pension fund in the stock market.

His company, Suphire Securities & Financial Services, was also found guilty at the time and was ordered to pay a fine of £200,000.

His wife Rea, co-owner of Suphire, despite having being cleared of related charges at the time of her husband’s sentencing, lost a lawsuit in November last year against the Cyprus Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) whom she had accused of showing prejudice towards the company she worked for with her husband.

Andronikou’s defence was appealing both against the verdict of the case as well as the sentence which they deemed as “excessive”.

The Court rejected the appeal yesterday, maintaining that the decision is “fully justifiable” as the 48-year-old stockbroker had the exclusively active role with regards the financial activities of Suphire where the money had come from for the illegality.

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.