TWO MEN are set to face a Nicosia Criminal Court after attempting to scam a businessman with around 80,000 counterfeit euros.
Yesterday, Andreas Afxentiou, a 42-year-old builder from Kato Polemidia in Limassol, and Demetris Papachristodoulou, a 43-year-old salesman from Mesa Yitonia in Limassol, told a Nicosia judge that they understood the eight charges against them, which included conspiracy to commit a crime, covering up a crime, being in possession of counterfeit notes, circulating counterfeit notes and obtaining money under false pretences.
Nicosia District Judge Lemonia Kaoutzani yesterday ordered that both the men answer the charges against them on February 22 at the Nicosia Criminal Court.
The judge then released them on £5,000 bail each, while ordering the two men to hand in their travel documents and passports to the police, that their names be put on the stop list and that they appear twice a week at their local police station.
A total of 28 witnesses are expected to be called up to testify, including Turkish Cypriot businessman Toufi Kiritzi.
The men were arrested after Kiritzi, a bureau de change owner, realised the 84,400 euros he had received in exchange for £47,860 were fake.
Kiritzi runs exchange bureaux in both occupied and free areas of Cyprus.
The notes are thought to have originated from Bulgaria or Romania and made their way to Cyprus via Greece, where fake notes with similar characteristics have been found in the past.
Police have seized 466 200 euro notes.
A third person wanted in connection with the case, suspended traffic police constable George Neophytou, was found dead in his apartment last month, having apparently committed suicide.
When Kiritzi realised the euros were fake, he immediately reported the case to Nicosia CID.
He was told to set up another meeting with the people involved in the car park of the Hilton Hotel in Nicosia, where he would tell them he’d discovered he’d been ripped off and would threaten to inform the police if he was not given his money back.
A meeting was set up for 2pm, and he was accompanied to the rendezvous by undercover officers.
An arrest was made when four people got out of the car.
However, only two people were later charged in connection with the case.
