Financial services and investment plan in high yielding safe funds with a profit rate of 7% per month, promised the 55-year-old man and his 39-year-old wife who were arrested for pyramid-type fraud in Limassol, through which they managed to extort a sum of money amounting to half a million euros.
Their plan of action was revealed on Thursday morning before the Limassol District Court, which ordered the detention of the foreign couple for a period of 8 days.
The two appear to have defrauded 25 people[/B] over a two-year period, from 2019 to 2021, with their action stopped after a complaint was made to police last May by a 46-year-old man.
How the scam started
The 55-year-old and his 39-year-old wife had visited the 46-year-old, a doctor by profession, for treatments of the suspect in December 2018. There, the 55-year-old introduced himself as a manager of a certain financial services company. In February 2019, the complainant invested 4000 euros and subsequently he seems to have been convinced and enrolled 11 other persons from his professional family and friends in this particular pyramid-fraud.
As heard in Court, after the investment and for the following months all investors regularly received an amount, on a monthly basis, corresponding to their investment. This lasted until the end of March 2020.
He was convinced... they brought others - The pyramid was set up
In fact, in the intervening period, the "investors" encouraged other persons, friends and acquaintances to participate in the "profitable" investment. Thus, 25 persons were gathered, who invested a total of 499 thousand euros, most of which ended up in the account of the 55-year-old suspect, according to the investigator of the case.
How it was revealed
In April 2020, the payments stopped abruptly. The 55-year-old suspect blamed financial problems as a result of the pandemic.
In June 2021, the complainant met by chance with a person who told him that he worked for a company related to the company whose name the 55-year-old used to pull off his stunt. To which he replied that no one by that name worked for that company.
This is how all the investors began to suspect that they were victims of a scam. Meanwhile they had already started looking for the 55-year-old to get their winnings, however he had put a block on their incoming calls while he did not even respond to the visits some of them made to his home.
As heard in Court the 55-year-old is making some allegations that are being investigated while the 39-year-old denies involvement in the case.
As part of the investigation of the case, disclosure orders are expected to be issued for the personal accounts of the suspects, while a number of handwriting samples will be taken from the two as the police are in possession of documents for which a handwriting test is required.
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