This abuse benefited 1.298 investors that bought property amounting to €1,6 billion and the total losses in uncollected taxes were at least €204 million.
[12] In July 2021, the European Commission sent a letter of formal notice to Cyprus for its failure to properly apply EU VAT rules for dwellings, giving Cyprus two months to take “appropriate steps.”[13][14] The inspector of taxes in 2020, Giannis Tsagaris, stated that if the European directive concerning VAT for the acquisition of housing is applied incorrectly, Cyprus will be asked to pay lost income from own resources, to cover the difference between reduced and normal VAT rate saved by investors.
[16] On 12 September 2022, former House of Representatives president Demetris Syllouris, former AKEL MP and real estate developer Christakis Giovani, as well as lawyer Andreas Pittadjis, and Antonis Antoniou, the executive director of the Giovani Group were brought before the court, facing five counts on two charges - conspiracy to defraud the state, and influencing a public official in violation of the law recognizing the Council of Europe Convention on the Criminalization of Corruption.
[18] In August 2024, Syllouris, Giovani and Pittadjis, brought a libel suit against Al Jazeera asking for $2 million each.
[19] The fourth case includes ten defendants, one of them is the former Minister of Transport, Communications, and Works, Marios Demetriades.
[16] The influx of foreign investors has created a number of problems for the local communities that are priced out from rentals as well as gentrification.
[23] The area of Trikomo has been especially built up with luxury hotels, apartments and casinos for a foreign clientele including Russians and Israelis, most of the land belongs to Greek Cypriots that were displaced during the 1974 Turkish invasion.
He additionally, reminded everyone of the European Commission's recommendations to avoid such programs, due to the inherent risks they entail.
[2] Subsequently the Audit Office of Cyprus provided the Ministry of Interior with a report on the scheme, advising for corrections and suggesting even it's abolishment.
[28] Additionally to the Audit Office, Moneyval, a monitoring body of the Council of Europe, that focuses on money-laundering, also made relevant indications of the risk of abuse that existed due to the weaknesses of the programme.