Police investigators have found applications capable of generating fake messages and calls on the two mobile phones belonging to the 45-year-old woman known as “Sandy,” who is at the centre of allegations published by Makarios Drousiotis, according to Phileleftheros. The apps were downloaded on March 30, just before Drousiotis published his first report.
The Sandy affair centres on allegations by journalist Makarios Drousiotis of a network involving senior Cypriot judicial, political and financial figures. All those named have denied wrongdoing. The evidence has been sent to Europol’s cybercrime laboratories for forensic examination.
Sandy stated in testimony that she had held similar or identical apps previously, but replaced her phone after it broke. In a third statement, she told investigators that the phone used to create the messages had been given to lawyer Nikos Clerides for safekeeping. That device has not been found. Clerides denies ever holding it, and it was not located during a police search of his premises.
Police are currently examining three phones: those belonging to Sandy, Clerides, and the former judge at the centre of the original allegations, who told investigators he has used the same device for several years.
The search of Clerides’s premises was carried out on Easter Saturday, after he had delayed giving investigators access to his phone and email.
Clerides has complained about the manner in which police conducted the search. His legal team is expected to file an application at the Supreme Court on Monday seeking a certiorari order — a legal challenge that would annul the search warrant.
During the search, investigators extracted messages and emails using keywords including “Focus” and “Vgenopoulos.”
Clerides’s legal team is expected to file an application at the Supreme Court on Monday seeking a certiorari order, a legal challenge that would annul the search warrant.
The sworn statement of a police investigator, given before a Nicosia judge in order to secure the search warrant and published by philenews, has clarified several contested aspects of the case. Among the findings set out in the statement:
Sandy has one child, a teenager, whose father is not former judge Michalis Christodoulou, as had originally been alleged.
Social Insurance records and visits to GHS doctors show she worked in Cyprus in various private jobs between 2001 and 2023. She never worked at the Presidential Palace: in 2023, the year in which she was alleged to have been employed there through the involvement of the former judge, she was in fact working at a shop in Nicosia.
Her employers have been traced and gave statements to investigators. Her father did die by suicide when she was 25, but purportedly not in the manner described in the allegations and not for the reason alleged.
Investigators are also examining offences including the spreading of false news, wiretapping, corruption, and money laundering, the statement showed. The investigator told the judge that “police investigations are directed towards the directions led by the testimony emerging daily.”
A photograph published by Drousiotis purporting to show Sandy’s injured hand has been confirmed to be an image she found online. Drousiotis acknowledged this in a subsequent post.
Two further photographs showing money and what was presented as a joint bank account were also sourced from the internet, according to the investigation.
Europol is expected to report next week on whether SMS messages sent to it for analysis are genuine or fabricated. The messages were submitted as screenshots rather than originals, which investigators believe may limit the scope of Europol’s findings.
The Cabinet is also expected to take up the matter next week, when Justice Minister Costas Fytiris will brief ministers on whether to appoint a criminal investigator. That decision will depend in part on Europol’s response.