Missing money
 

On the 16th of April 2021 our Solicitor went to the Bank of Cyprus in Larnaca and transferred our life’s savings of 47,838.00 Euros to a Lloyds bank account in London, which not only did not belong to us, but was not or never had been in our name, our Larnaca Solicitor stated that at the last minute he received an email that he thought was from us changing the bank account details, but never bothered to check. Since then we have gone round in circles.
The Cypriot law society said in their opinion he done nothing wrong? The Solicitor's insurance said that he is not insured for cyber crime and neither banks will talk to us because we are not their customers.
The Lawyer refuses to accept any responsibility and also will not return the 1500.00 euro fee that he charged for his services.
We contacted another Solicitor in Cyprus and he said that our former Solicitor knows full well it will cost us more than we have lost to fight the case in a Cypriot court, bearing in mind almost all the Solicitors in Cyprus belong to the same club.
Does anyone have any ideas please.

Re: Missing money
 

He probably just orderedt himself a new Mercedes...??

How did you issue instructions of your Bank Account? Was it written on a document physically given or posted to your so called Solicitor?
Did you send the details by e-mail?
I presume you gave him an IBAN number and Swift/Bic code for your bank?
The 'not insured' excuse does not sound correct in any case, they are trying to fob you off.

You need to find a lawyer and get them to demand the information of the booking from Bank of Cyprus with evidence that your solicitor transferred the money, along with his signature on the transfer document and to which bank account in UK.

The lawyer can also demand a copy of the e-mail (including so-called 'header' information) which will show where the e-mail came from.

If he is unable to provide both of these, you should sue him for theft of your money.

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Still trying to find a Lawyer who will take on the case, evidently one was highly successful in this area from Nicosia but so far cannot find him.

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OP is wasting time chasing solicitor. This is clearly bank fraud, so issue must be chased with bank.
Post doesnt make it clear where money was sent from, lawyer's holding account or OP own account. Either way, issue must be chased through sending bank.

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The lawyer shouldn't have sent the money to an account with a different name without checking first. How did the fraudsters know that the money would be transferred? Either from the lawyer or the bank. Setting lawyers on lawyers costs another€50k.

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Our money was sent from the Lawyers account to a fraudulent account number, but with our name on the paying in slip, the Lawyer states that just before the transaction he received an email from us changing the account number, he knows that the bank won’t talk to us, knows we can’t afford to take him to court, and refuses not only to accept his part in the play, but also refuses to pay back the 1500.00 Euros that he took to make our money disappear.

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Neither of the banks will talk to us because we are not their customers, and he knows full well that we can’t afford to take him to court, he has even refused to pay back his fee for making our money disappear.

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Then from technical point, issue is simple. Layers were holding client money and they lost it due to fraud.
In that case, lawyers are responsible for loss. Are there any no-win-no-fee companies in Cyprus?
https://www.injuryclaims.com.cy/en/no-win-no-fee.asp

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Isnt it simply theft. Why not go to the police?

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As regards Lloyds in London, how about the UK banking ombudsman - at least they might persuade the bank to talk to you.

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He is very clever and slippery, he knows we can’t afford to take him to court, and so far everyone we have asked to help us has just turned their back, apart from the Cypriot ombudsman, who said that the fault did not lie with us, but the solicitor and the bank, neither of whom accept responsibility?

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Tried the English ombudsman and they will not get involved because the money was sent from Cyprus, the Cypriot ombudsman said that the fault lies with the solicitor and the bank, but again they won’t help us.

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British police have said that its out of their jurisdiction, and the police in Cyprus so far have not helped us or replied to our emails.

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The Lawyer who made the money disappear is well aware that we can’t afford to take him to court, we are going round in circles, which is now taking its toll on our health, but when we go on his Facebook page he is all happy and smug 😡

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Do you think it would help to talk with the media, either there or in the UK?

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The solicitor is waiting for us to make a slip so that he can sue us because at the moment he thinks he has got away Scot free, we are hoping that sooner or later someone will champion our cause, possibly an ex-solicitor that now resides in Cyprus could give us some advice 🙏

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Is there an ombudsman that could look into this for you. Maybe looking at what can be done on a higher level rather than grass roots would shake the lawyer up and make him do the right thing.

Rosemary

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The Cypriot Ombudsman ruled that we were not to blame at all, and it was a contract between the Lawyer and the Bank, but they wouldn’t take it any further 😳

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Darn it. It is so obviously a fraudulent act by the lawyer so there really must be a way of making him pay for his crime.

So sorry that you are going through this stress.

Rosemary

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The stress has taken its toll on our health with the Wife now diagnosed with Crones disease, yet on the Lawyers Facebook page, he is as happy as Larry 😡

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You can either hire solicitor and take him to court or forget about whole thing. Anything else is just waste of time.
I dont see what do you expect to see on his facebook and how will that get you money back.

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How many people could sit back and forget about 48 thousand euros!!!!

Rosemary

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You won't really find any answers here, perhaps some support but that's about it. Start back at the ombudsman and get advice from him.
Also read my earlier post about proof regarding the mysterious e-mail. The problem is also of course there is so much fraud of this kind going on.
It will have to be tackled step by step.

Re: Missing money
 

I hope that one day this happens to you so that you can feel exactly what it’s like to have years of your life wasted, and develop health problems, we were looking for good advice, not to have to reply to someone like you, your comments make me think that you are sympathetic to the wrong party for some underlying reason.

Re: Missing money
 

Firstly you have my deepest sympathy on this.

A couple of suggestions.

If you are running up against a brick wall in Cyprus at the moment then I would tackle it again in the UK, the recieving bank is in the UK and therefore the final part of the crime has happened there, dont be fobbed off with the jurisdication excuse because crimes of this nature are frequently global and they are still investigated. Out of interest which Police agency did you try to report it to ?

Have you considered pursuing through the small claims process in Cyprus ? https://www.debitura.com/small-claim...diction/Cyprus

Possibly consider engaging with a dual qualified solicitor in the UK for advice.

Have you spoken with anyone from the press in the UK ?

What was your original engagement with the solicitor for and what were the terms for the transfer instruction (that you originally gave) ?

Re: Missing money
 

Peter, I sympathise with yours and your wife's loss of such a large amount of money, it leaves you with a really sick feeling as well as anger.
My husband and I thought we had bought a flat in a Liverpool development, what we didn't realise was we had actually just bought into a speculative investment - which went badly wrong when the developers went into receivership. We didn't buy this flat as an investment property, it was going to be our home when my Brit husband and I (Australian) moved to the UK. We are also an older couple, and we lost just over 100,000 pounds.

It's actually worse for you, because my husband and I must bear some of the blame for being so bloody ignorant. It's a horrible feeling.

To be fair to EU I think he/she was actually giving you good advice, although I can see how the post would be upsetting to you. From what I can tell, your only chance of recovering your life savings is to see a solicitor - or several, if the first/second etc ones aren't what you're looking for.

The only (slim) chance we had of getting any money back was to speak with a solicitor, and we were very, very lucky to find one who was on our side and only cost us 1,200 pounds. It was only due to him that we got 40,000 pounds back, which still left us 100,000 out of pocket.

I wish you all the luck in the world, and if your money was deliberately stolen by your solicitor I hope they get what's coming to them.

Re: Missing money
 

Peter, I certainly can sympathise with you - right now we are going through a similar situation to that described above by Spouse of Scouse (albeit different circumstances), luckily we have a red hot solicitor on the case, whether she will be successful remains to be seen.

It may go against the grain but maybe approaching the press might be a good idea.

Re: Missing money
 

Firstly thank you so much for your advice and attempt to help which is very much appreciated. Lloyds Bank in the UK now totally refuse to talk to us anymore because we are not their Clients, when it first happened they accepted that the account was being used for fraudulent activity and froze the transactions, but too late to stop our money being taken out, when we said that a large amount going in and out in such a short period of time should have raised suspicions, even with regards to money laundering, they closed ranks.
We were directed to Action Fraud by the UK Police who were a complete waste time and effort, finally stating that because the crime happened in Cyprus, it was out of their jurisdiction.
We will look into the small claims in Cyprus, we didn’t realise one existed, thank you for the link.
We can’t afford to engage a Solicitor to fight a Solicitor unless it was no win no fee, which we are still trying to find.
Would love to put it in the British press, but not sure how we would go about it.
As for the Solicitor, he acted for us in the original purchase which was £100000.00 and then put forward an offer of £40000.00 when we were trying to sell the land, yes in hindsight we should have smelt something was wrong then but we carried on. He advised that we had the money put into his account first and then he would take his fee and give the rest, yes he took £1500.00 before making the rest disappear, refused to accept any responsibility or to give his fee back. We are worried about naming and shaming him because he is so crafty, but if you look on one of the previous posts you will see a copy of the paying in slip he made out, with our name on it, but not our bank or account number. Once again thanks for the advice, if you have any press ideas either in Cyprus or the UK please let us know 👍

Re: Missing money
 

Sounds right up the Daily Mail's street.

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👍

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That would have been my suggestion :) Alternatively if there is an English newspaper/online in Cyprus.

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We are definitely going to look into both options, thank you for your advice.

Re: Missing money
 

We looked into the small claims court in Cyprus, bearing in mind this Lawyer is extremely clever and crafty, if we lost the case because of whatever reason we would have to pay his legal costs which he would run up through the roof, it is not the same as England, we have found that the legal system in Cyprus is very unpredictable, an English person against a Cypriot Lawyer, although without a doubt anyone would know who was in the wrong, we have trouble trusting anyone in Cyprus now.

Re: Missing money
 

Use a Cypriot lawyer based in the UK. There are quite a few. This is just one.

https://www.chambers.law/?gad_source...MaArWDEALw_wcB

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Ignore the above, these people may be more use:


https://www.judicaregroup.com/site/c...ers-in-cyprus/

Re: Missing money
 

I only just found this thread, but I have a few thoughts on some of the posts.
The bank did nothing wrong, it transferred money from the solicitor's account per the solicitor's instructions.
The "different name" rule doesn't apply for a solicitor's account. I agree that it sounds like it was an inside job, but might not be the solicitor/ solicitors office. Who else knew about the money/ transaction?
This is undoubtedly true, no bank will correspond or negotiate with someone who is not a customer, even a lawyer or a professional with an interest in the matter is unlikely to get any useful information from the banks.
Again, without a customer relationship to the account where the funds were sent, the banking ombudsman isn't going to get involved.
Billions of pounds, euros and dollars flow through London every day, and there is very little liklihood of the funds being found there. In fact is highly likely (I would say "near certain") that the funds were moved on from the account they were credited to within 24 hours of being credited in London, and moved out of the UK and beyond the reach of UK or EU courts.
While the solicitor could be involved directly in the fraud, it is far more likely that he was negligent/ duped in taking the email of new details at face value without checking back directly to his client. Lawyers can be utter sharks, but I am sceptical that many of them are just straight-up theives.
That sounds reasonable, and consistent with my various comments above, which of course doesn't help you.

So, my thoughts are that there was a criminal fraud in Cyprus, that the solicitor while reckless in taking the email instructions and using them to transfer the money, was likely another victim of the fraud, not a particpant, and that the most likely route to any progress at all is to persuade someone to investigate the fraud. Whether that would be the police in Cyprus or a solicitor and private investigator, I'm not sure, but the key to understanding what happened is getting access to the email instructions, and finding out who sent the email, and where they got the information to send the email - how did they know that the money was there, waiting to be transferred?

Do you know anything about the account the money was sent to in London? Bank, name, account number, etc.? Despite all the comments above (mine and others), there is a small chance that you, or a lawyer acting on your behalf, might be able to "shake something loose" if you have the name and account number on the account, and send letters to the bank in the UK addressed to "the Fraud department" and "the Compliance Officer". I am not at all optimistic that you will get much of a response, and even less optimistic that it will lead to you getting your money back, but given your situation, it is something I would at least try as you don't have much to lose at this point.

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Pulaski, Fair comment. My only reservation would be that if you look at the state of the real estate sector in Cyprus, there are around 100,000 that have still not received their title deeds. Accusations have been made about collusion between the government, judiciary, banks, and legal profession. Who knows? The Cyprus Property News is full of fraudulent cases. It looks like a minefield to me.

https://www.news.cyprus-property-buy...ds/id=00167469

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Oh, I know that corruption is a major problem in Cyprus, and it is an issue that my employer is aware of and monitors, and as such affects my work.

The international corruption rating agency "Transparency.org" scores Cyprus as "53" on a 100 scale, along side Georgia, Grenada, and Rwanda, so some fine company there (Denmark is top, scoring 90, Somalia is bottom, scoring 11). At least Cyprus is rated above Saudi Arabia (52) and Malta (51). :rolleyes:

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This may be after the fact and will not help the OP, but, to possibly help others, why use a solicitor to move cash? These days, with companies such as Wise and now Revolut, it is possible to move money relatively easy around the World yourself and retain almost total control. Even in the UK, I have often found solicitors to be careless and inefficient and often delegate these tasks to an inexperienced office junior unless they have another agenda. They certainly need to be monitored. I understand that each case is different and there may have been a justifiable reason for using a solicitor but I would avoid it like the plague if I could.