Before John Dalli, there was the Bishop of Limassol – so he’s in good company

Mary Swan/Ladybird/Nina Petros (real name Eloise Marie Corbin) has caused the dollar signs to light up in John Dalli’s eyes with talk of projects worth “billions” which drew him to the Bahamas and which have had his daughters adopt her as their ‘client’ and install her in a flat in Sliema’s High Street.

Well, he’s not the first. In 1998, the Bishop of Limassol in Cyprus went down in a major scandal because of the very same woman. Here it is in brief, from the press review put out by the Cyprus Mail. The names in bold are the names of the Cypriot newspapers being reviewed.

Friday, October 16, 1998

BISHOP BLAMES MYSTERY WOMAN

THE BISHOP of Limassol Chrysanthos continued to dominate the front pages yesterday.

Phileleftheros led with an interview of the Bishop, in which Chrysanthos blamed his plight on “mystery woman” Nina Petros who had been handling his business dealings. He said that she was “the brain” behind everything and admitted that his biggest mistake had been to trust her completely.

He felt he had been left exposed by Petros, whom he described as the key in the case. She would come up with ideas and take care of all the correspondence. He also admitted to owning a flat in Athens and a house in London.

And he even suggested the punishment that the Holy Synod could impose on him: bar him from conducting any financial dealings.

Alithia reported that a man of questionable reputation, Andreas Antoniades, a.k.a. Keravnos, was also after Nina Petros as she owed him £40, 000. She had promised to pay him £80,000 to go to the Philippines and bring back gold and diamonds worth $250 million.

Keravnos had warned Petros that if she did not pay him what he was owed he would “have some blacks seize her and make her disappear from Johannesburg”, where she is reportedly staying. He alleged that Petros had links with American and Jewish mafia.

Simerini said that the Holy Synod had no intention of defrocking Chrysanthos. Archbishop Chrysostomos had proposed a compromise deal by which Chrysanthos would resign, but keep his car and chauffeur as well as the title of former Bishop. He would retreat to a monastery for a short period of time and then be appointed director of the school for priests.

In the meantime, the Attorney-general has decided to re-open the case of the Amiandos mine, which was owned by the Limassol bishopric and closed down owing the state hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Machi claimed that more evidence against Chrysanthos had been unearthed by police investigations into the sale of a plot of land by the Limassol Bishopric to the Electricity Authority.

Police had failed to find out where £286,000 of the total amount paid for the land had gone. Of this amount only £88,000 were accounted for – £72,000 were paid to the estate agent who brokered the deal and £16,000 was paid in taxes.