Fraud Convictions Didn’t Stop This Lawyer From Building a Bustling Practice in Cyprus

He was jailed in the U.K. for immigration fraud in a scandal that brought down a cabinet minister. He then absconded from prison, and resurfaced in Cyprus where he was later convicted for selling fake visas.

None of that has stopped Christos “Chris” Christodoulides from building a bustling immigration law practice in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia. In fact, he recently announced plans to expand to two more cities.

Reporters have obtained leaked emails related to Britain’s attempt to extradite Christodoulides, as well as legal documents from Cyprus, which tell the story of his misadventures in both countries. 

Despite his criminal convictions, Christodoulides is still licensed to practice law in Cyprus. He even managed to renew his law license while serving out the remainder of his U.K. sentence under house arrest in Cyprus, reporters discovered.

But the Cyprus Bar Association is about to take action. 

Internal documents obtained by reporters show that the bar association has accused him of behavior that is “disgraceful or incompatible with the legal profession.” Christodoulides faces a hearing in November, and could lose his license to practice law.

In addition to his immigration fraud convictions in the U.K. and Cyprus, Christodoulides was convicted of conspiracy in a human trafficking case. But the charges were dismissed upon appeal, with a Cypriot judge ruling that Christodoulides could not be convicted based primarily on the testimony of a defendant in the case. 

Christodoulides declined to answer specific questions about cases against him in Cyprus and the U.K. He told OCCRP and its Cypriot member center, CIReN, that all past claims against him have now been settled. 

Even as Christodoulides was ensnared in the human trafficking and immigration fraud cases in Cyprus, leaked emails reveal that the U.K. was attempting to extradite him.  

The correspondence shows that a judge rejected the U.K. request in 2010, because Cyprus had a law against extraditing its own citizens. Christodoulides was born in Britain but holds a Cyprus passport.

In 2014, a U.K. representative to the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation reached out again to Cyprus. The official asked if a constitutional amendment made the previous year meant that Christodoulides could be extradited, or whether it would allow for “his serving the UK sentence in Cyprus.”

Attached to the email from the official was a copy of the European Arrest Warrant for Christodoulides, which outlines his role in an immigration case that shook the British government. 

Political Fallout

Between 2001 and 2004, Christodoulides forged documents on at least 600 applications for people wanting to emigrate from Romania to the U.K., according to the warrant. At the time, the U.K. was part of the EU, but Romania wasn’t and its citizens required visas.

“Christodoulides provided ready made template packages to assist those individuals to obtain the relevant visas,” the European warrant states. “The charge for this package varied between £1,000 and £3,000 ($4,650).” 

The forged paperwork was for a visa program that allowed non-EU nationals to start businesses in the U.K. After a diplomat blew the whistle, the scam sparked public outrage and Beverley Hughes resigned as Britain’s Home Office minister. Hughes had reportedly been warned that the Home Office was approving fraudulent visas.

Christodoulides was sentenced in 2005 to nine years in prison, for “conspiracy to cheat and defraud, conspiracy to facilitate the commission of a breach of the immigration law and attempting to pervert the course of justice,” according to the findings of a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

The judge took particular offense to the fact that he had committed the crimes while acting as a lawyer.

“A solicitor of the Supreme Court as you know is an officer of the Court and it is quite appalling that you should have behaved as you did over this considerable period of time,” said the judge.

Upon appeal, Christodoulides’ sentence was reduced to seven and a half years. He served three before walking out of Springhill prison in Buckinghamshire, a community northwest of London. 

Christodoulides had been granted a day pass on May 4, 2008, but did not return as required by 6:30 that evening. 

“A check of his room showed that he had taken his belongings,” says the warrant. “He never returned to HMP Springfield and thereafter left the jurisdiction and travelled to the Republic of Cyprus.”

Following his 2005 conviction, Christodoulides lost his license to practice law in the U.K. But that did not seem to bother the Cyprus authorities when he showed up and set up shop there.

“Incredibly, the Cyprus Bar admitted him as a solicitor because, of course, he had committed no offenses in Cyprus,” said Giovanni di Stefano, who has represented him in legal cases. 

“So he is in another country, and he continued to practice law until he did the same bloody thing again!”

‘Light Sentence’

In 2013, Christodoulides was convicted in Cyprus, an EU country, for selling fake German visas to clients trying to avoid deportation.

His clients “were in trouble with the law and were willing to pay any amount to secure documents that could legalize their stay in the European Union,” the verdict states.

Christodoulides was found guilty on eight charges, but received just 5 months in jail. The judge said his leniency was based on factors including a clean criminal record — even though Christodoulides had been convicted in the U.K.

The judge also took into account that Christodoulides was “a lawyer, intelligent, very well educated and had very good career prospects.” 

Following that 2013 conviction, his license to practice law was suspended for three years, but the Cyprus Bar Association agreed to allow him to work as a consultant for other legal offices.

Five years after the immigration fraud conviction, Christodoulides was brought to court in a human trafficking case involving Romanian women who were in “a dire financial situation” and were “lured” to Cyprus with the promise of work. Instead, their identity documents were taken away upon arrival, and they were locked up in apartments and threatened.

“While they came with dreams and goals for a better future for themselves and their families, they finally found themselves completely unexpectedly facing a nightmare of deception, exploitation, intimidation,” reads the 2018 verdict.

Christodoulides was initially convicted for “conspiracy,” with a judge finding that he had initiated the scheme. But the charge was dismissed upon appeal, because the main body of evidence against him came from another defendant in the case. 

In general, Cyprus has problems fighting human trafficking, according to Rita Theodorou Superman, an opposition parliamentarian who previously served as head of the anti-trafficking department with the national police.

“Those who believe, and have trust that institutions can go on the way they currently are, have no bearing with reality,” she said, without commenting specifically on the case involving Christodoulides.

“Maybe our judges don’t recognise the real problem,” she added. “Maybe they lack expertise. Maybe they fear for their lives because they’re dealing with organized crime.” 

Justice Postponed

In November 2022, a Cypriot court finally ordered Christodoulides to finish the remainder of his sentence for the U.K. immigration fraud case — a full 13 years after the European Arrest Warrant was issued, amid Britain’s failed attempts to extradite him.

When Christodoulides walked out of a British prison in 2008, he had four and a half years left on his sentence. But Cyprus authorities reduced that to 12 days.

Christodoulides was also facing a fine of 650,000 British pounds ($1 million) to be distributed to victims of the immigration fraud. He was supposed to spend an extra three years in prison if he didn’t pay up.

Rather than paying the fine to the U.K., Christodoulides served the sentence in Cyprus. He was initially handed three years for the unpaid fine, plus the 12 days for the remainder of his previous U.K. conviction. He was allowed to serve the sentence under house arrest, rather than going to prison. 

However, Christodoulides ended up serving only 15 months and one week. The parole board reduced his sentence based on factors including having “no previous convictions.”

Christodoulides’ parole also allowed him to “continue work as a freelance lawyer from his office in Nicosia.” The day after he was paroled, he appeared in a Facebook post announcing plans to expand his practice to the Cypriot cities of Limassol and Larnaca.

A month before Christodoulides was granted parole, the deputy director of prisons wrote a letter to Cyprus’ attorney general questioning whether he should be allowed to continue his legal work. 

"In view of the fact that he is a convicted person, the following questions arise,” the director wrote. “Have any disciplinary measures been imposed on him by the Cyprus Bar Association? Is he entitled to practice as a lawyer?"

The Cyprus Bar Association is now examining Christodoulides’ conduct. The documents obtained by reporters include allegations that he renewed his license in 2023 “without disclosing or while concealing” that he was serving a sentence under house arrest at the time.

After next month’s hearing, Christodoulides could be disbarred, have his license suspended, or be given a fine, a warning, or a reprimand.