The “Sandy” case, or “Sandygate”, in Cyprus quickly moved from the realm of a political and judicial scandal to that of a controversy over the reliability of the digital evidence linked to the investigation that “exposed” the scandal. The accusations made public by journalist Makarios Drousiotis, a candidate in the May 2026 parliamentary elections for the Volt party, targeted leading political, judicial and economic figures in Cyprus. However, within just a few weeks, attention shifted to the elements that were supposed to support these accusations: the pictures, voice recordings and messages. Cypriot media investigated these documents made public by the journalist and identified major inconsistencies. The case has thus become a textbook case in journalistic verification during an election period.
Background to “Sandygate”
The so-called “Sandygate” case is based first and foremost on the story attributed to a woman publicly referred to by the pseudonym “Sandy”. The account was made public by journalist Makarios Drousiotis, who is running for office in the Cypriot parliamentary elections of 24 May 2026 on the Volt Cyprus list, a progressive and Euro-federalist party, in the Nicosia constituency. Sandy is presented as a victim of past sexual violence, a source who had preserved compromising messages and a witness to an alleged influence network involving judicial, political and financial figures in Cyprus.
In the initial version relayed by Drousiotis, Sandy’s story is said to begin with abuse committed when she was a minor. A former judge of the Supreme Court in Cyprus, Michalakis Christodoulou, is accused, in this account, of having sexually abused her from the age of ten, raped her at thirteen and impregnated her at sixteen. These claims form the emotional and political core of the case: Sandy is presented as a long-standing victim of a powerful man, before later becoming the holder of sensitive information.
Still according to this account, Sandy allegedly had several children linked to this relationship with Christodoulou, including one child who died of leukaemia.
The second stage of the alleged story takes place around 2018-2019, when Sandy is said to have approached Cypriot lawyer Nikos Clerides. According to what Clerides told Philenews, she came to see him after his own public revelations about cases involving bankers and judges, and gave him a large number of text messages, photographs and other pieces of evidence in support of her story. Clerides says she was frightened and told him what she claimed to have experienced.
At this point, Sandy ceases to be merely, in the account of her supporters, an alleged victim and becomes a source. The documents she allegedly handed over to Clerides would form the core of the file later made public by Drousiotis. According to Clerides, these elements included messages attributed to public figures, with references to politicians, lawyers, law firms and large sums of money.
The exact date of this initial contact is not entirely consistent in public accounts. Philenews noted that Clerides gave different versions depending on his statements: in one declaration, he says Sandy approached him after his 2018 revelations; in another, he places their meeting at the beginning of 2020. This uncertainty would become one of the problematic points examined after the scandal broke.
Around July 2020, the account introduces one of the most explosive elements of the case: that of a supposed “Brotherhood”, presented as an influence network with high-level politicians and other public figures. According to the version reported by Philenews based on Drousiotis’ account, this structure allegedly decided to buy her silence and bring her into its circle, fearing that she might reveal what she knew about Christodoulou.
In this part of the file, there is mention of an alleged transfer of 850,000 euros to an account belonging to Christodoulou, with the money then supposed to reach Cyprus gradually in cash. Part of this sum, 250,000 euros, was allegedly handed to Sandy in a suitcase or a safe, accompanied by a note reading: “Sandy, 250,000, From Michalis”.
This episode serves to connect Sandy’s alleged personal story to a broader corruption case. In the logic of Drousiotis’ account, Sandy would therefore not only be a victim of past abuse, but she would also become the target of an intimidation mechanism.
The next stage is Sandy’s alleged departure for Germany. According to the version reported by Clerides, his priority was to protect Sandy after learning about her story. He says she was taken abroad for her safety with the help of an embassy in Nicosia, in a context in which she had spoken of sexual abuse and compromising communications involving public figures. In another formulation reported by Philenews, Clerides allegedly organised, with the help of a private expert abroad, her escape to Germany via the United States embassy.
An audio element was then presented as supporting this departure. Cypriot journalist Stelios Orphanides said that Sandy had sent him an audio message via Signal on 11 March 2021 at 11:50 a.m. Central European Time, and that this message confirmed her arrival in Germany. According to the initial presentation of this audio, a German announcement could be heard in the background, possibly in a railway station, linked to the health measures of the pandemic.
After this German episode, Sandy is said to have returned to Cyprus. Cyprus Mail reports that, according to Nikos Clerides, she had returned after spending time abroad and was trying to rebuild a normal life with her three children. At that point, she did not want to testify to the police or have her identity made public. Clerides then describes her as a panicked woman in a dead-end situation.
The meeting with Makarios Drousiotis came next. According to Philenews, Drousiotis says he met Sandy in April 2023, at her request, because she wanted him to write her story. He says she then confirmed to him the authenticity of the messages.
The file, which until then had been kept or discussed within a restricted circle around Clerides and a few trusted people, entered a journalistic phase. Drousiotis became the person who would structure the elements, connect them to a broader thesis about the rule of law in Cyprus, and then make them public. Philenews indicates that Clerides had eventually passed the material on to trusted people, including Drousiotis, after Sandy’s return to Cyprus.
It was also around this period that the allegation emerged that Sandy had been hired at the Presidential Palace after the election of Nikos Christodoulides. Drousiotis would later ask for explanations on this point. The Cypriot government formally denied it, saying that no person corresponding to the information linked to the pseudonym Sandy had worked in the presidential office under the current administration.
Finally, the scandal broke publicly on 30 March 2026, when Makarios Drousiotis published a long text titled “The Dark Face of the Rule of Law in Cyprus”. Philenews reports that this article confronted Cypriot society with a series of very serious accusations, presented as linked to a network of corruption and influence involving leading figures.
From that moment on, Sandy became the central figure of a national scandal. She is at once the alleged victim, the source of the messages and the cornerstone of a file supposed to reveal a system of collusion. The people named in the case reject the accusations, while the authorities begin examining the material submitted by Drousiotis and the elements circulating in the media.
The fact-checking by Cypriot media
As the authorities examine the submitted material, which initially appears to concern allegations of corruption and abuse, the case also turns toward the credibility of the documents supposed to support them. Indeed, messages, screenshots, audio files and images are placed at the centre of public debate, insofar as these elements appear questionable.
In this verification context, the Cypriot journalist Elina Stamatiou, from the outlet AlphaNews, produced a series of fact-checking articles on several of the documents. The first article of this kind, dated 16 April 2026, concerned the origin of photographs showing a “knife wound” of which Sandy had allegedly been the victim. The journalist used reverse image search, a classic fact-checking technique, and found the same photo on an online test platform called “testedich.de”. The article states that the image accompanies one of these tests, suggesting that it may not necessarily come from the alleged incident.
The outlet specifies that the only visible difference is that the photo circulated in the message attributed to “Sandy” appears reversed compared with the one found on the German website. Despite this, Makarios Drousiotis continued defending the authenticity of the messages, accusing the police of constructing scenarios and leaking them to the press.
In the same vein, a few days later, on 22 April 2026, Elina Stamatiou published a second article, this time focused on one of the voice messages sent by Sandy and forming part of the documents submitted to the Cypriot police. This message dated from 11 March 2021 and was interpreted as confirmation of Sandy’s arrival in Germany. In the background, a German announcement can be heard, which had been interpreted as possibly a station or transport announcement linked to the health measures of the Covid-19 pandemic period.
The AlphaNews article states that this message was subjected to digital audio analysis, with the help of experts, in order to isolate the ambient sounds. According to the outlet, once the main voice had been removed as much as possible, what remained was not the typical hubbub of an airport or railway station, but only a female voice speaking German.
The article argues that this voice does not correspond to an announcement broadcast over loudspeakers, but to an excerpt from a documentary. The partial transcript reportedly refers to Venezuelans, restrictions and shortages, content with no apparent connection to an arrival in Germany. In its article, AlphaNews explains that the excerpt was traced in a 54-minute documentary by the German media outlet ARTE, broadcasted in 2019 and then uploaded to YouTube in April 2020. The corresponding passage appears between 43 min 33 sec and 43 min 45 sec of the documentary devoted to the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. This analysis casts doubt on the authenticity or, at the very least, the interpretation of the audio message attributed to “Sandy”. The outlet thus suggests that the sound used to support the idea of an arrival in Germany could in fact come from an old television report or a Youtube documentary unrelated to the case.
Alphanews published a few weeks later, on 9 May 2026, a summary article, revisiting the four “items” from the Drousiotis file that the newsroom believes had been weakened by journalistic investigation. The outlet recalls the first two cases already mentioned, namely the photo of the knife wound found on a German quiz website and the audio of the supposed arrival in Germany associated with a documentary on Venezuela. The article also adds two other problematic elements: a video of a telephone conversation and messages written in French and German.
The video examined by Alphanews is a telephone conversation between Sandy and an unidentified man, who was allegedly speaking from the phone of another person named in the file. According to Makarios Drousiotis’ initial presentation, the man heard in the recording allegedly promised Sandy some form of protection. However, AlphaNews says it observed a technical inconsistency in the video: the phone being filmed is supposed to be used in speaker mode, but the speaker icon appears disabled on the screen. The outlet concludes that the sound heard does not seem to come from the phone visible in the video. Two hypotheses are then put forward: either the conversation was being played from a second device outside the frame, or the image and sound were assembled separately. In both cases, the article considers that the video cannot be regarded as direct proof of the conversation as it had been presented.
The other element verified concerns two messages written in German and in French, included in the file published by Drousiotis. These messages were allegedly linked to exchanges around a supposed trust or legal steps abroad concerning Sandy. AlphaNews says it submitted them to German-speaking and French-speaking individuals and, according to the outlet, the result of this linguistic review is problematic: the wording appears artificial and unnatural, even difficult to understand, particularly in the case of the message in French. The outlet therefore suggests that these may be automatically translated texts, for example using a tool such as Google Translate, rather than messages written directly by French or German interlocutors.
Aside from the specific verifications carried out by AlphaNews, other Cypriot media, including Philenews, reported elements that appeared to come mainly from the ongoing police investigation. These reports raised further questions about the coherence of the initial account, but they should be treated with caution, as they rely largely on information attributed to investigative sources rather than on independently verifiable journalistic checks.
Philenews reported, for example, that investigators were examining inconsistencies in the chronology of the case, the sums of money mentioned, the dates on which Sandy allegedly contacted lawyer Nikos Clerides, and the evidentiary value of some of the documents circulated publicly. The outlet also reported that a photograph of bundles of banknotes, associated with an alleged cash handover, had previously appeared online on a Dutch website dated 20 December 2021.
The outlet also reported that administrative records examined by investigators did not support one of the politically sensitive claims in the file that Sandy had worked at the Presidential Palace after 2023. According to the information cited by the outlet, police records, social security data and statements from former employers indicated that the woman identified as Sandy, whose real first name is Kyriaki, had not been employed at the Presidential Palace and was instead working in a private business in Nicosia during the relevant period. Cyprus Mail also reported that investigators had cross-checked social security records with employer statements and reached a similar conclusion.
Other reports focused on the digital dimension of the case. Philenews and Cyprus Mail reported that investigators had found, or were examining, applications capable of generating fake messages or fake calls on phones linked to Sandy. Cyprus Mail also reported that the police investigation had widened after forensic inconsistencies were identified, including questions about whether the device handed over matched the timeline of the messages under examination. According to the same reports, more than 130 disputed digital files, including message screenshots and spreadsheet-type files, were sent to Europol’s cybercrime laboratories for technical analysis.
These elements remain part of an ongoing investigation and should not be presented as definitive proof of fabrication. However, they contributed to shifting the public discussion from the initial allegations themselves to the reliability, origin and chain of custody of the digital material used to support them. At this stage, the case therefore remains marked by two parallel questions: whether the accusations are substantiated, and whether the documents presented in support of them are authentic, manipulated or misinterpreted.
The Sandy case before the Cypriot elections and its impact on public debate
The “Sandygate” broke at a particularly sensitive moment in Cyprus, during the pre-election period ahead of the parliamentary elections of 24 May 2026, already marked by strong political volatility, the emergence of new party forces and a form of electoral disillusionment noted by the OSCE/ODIHR in a preparatory report on the vote.
The scandal therefore took on a particular political resonance as the elections approached. Makarios Drousiotis, the author of the accusations, is also a candidate for the Volt Cyprus party in Nicosia. This circumstance made the file more sensitive in the public sphere, placing it at the boundary between journalistic investigation and the context of an election campaign. Volt Cyprus therefore had to clarify its position, saying that it was not distancing itself from its candidate while calling for a full clarification of the facts.
The most concrete electoral effect, however, concerns the Cypriot centrist Alma party and former MEP Dimitris Papadakis. The party removed him from its electoral list because of allegations linked to the disputed messages, while specifying that this was a political decision and not a judicial conclusion. Alma insisted on the presumption of innocence, but considered that the mere possibility that the messages were authentic posed a major political problem.
The case therefore had a direct effect on the campaign: it altered at least one electoral list and forced the parties concerned to clarify their positions. In addition, it shifted part of the public debate toward the themes of corruption and institutional responsibility.
At this stage, however, it would be prudent not to state that Sandygate has already changed the election result, insofar as the elections have not yet taken place. What can be said with greater certainty is that the scandal has disrupted the campaign and dominated the political agenda, increasing the visibility of certain small parties, in particular Volt and its candidate Drousiotis, as Politis noted in its analysis of the pre-election climate.
However, the impact of Sandygate is not limited solely to parties and candidacies. Indeed, the case appears to have affected Cypriot civic debate by shifting the centre of gravity of public discussion: the question is no longer only whether the accusations of corruption and abuse are true, but also whether the evidence presented to the public is authentic or manipulated.
This shift appears to have contributed to a polarisation of the debate. Part of public opinion seems willing to give credence to the accusations, in a climate where trust in certain institutions is already fragile. Another part is more cautious, even sceptical, particularly because the elements under discussion rely largely on messages, screenshots and digital files, part of which at least has been shown to be unrelated to the case.
This division also appears in an opinion poll published by AlphaNews on 23 April 2026, three weeks after the first publications on the “Sandygate”. According to this poll, carried out by Rai Consultants among 1,086 people between 7 and 19 April, 46% of respondents believed that the elements presented in Makarios Drousiotis’ accusations were true, while 45% expressed reservations about their validity and 9% said they did not believe them. The same poll indicated that 59% of respondents said they knew the content of the accusations, 25% had “heard something” about them and 16% were not aware of them. These figures suggest that the case had already widely entered public debate, while dividing citizens almost equally over the credibility of the elements put forward.
The poll is also interesting because it places the scandal within a broader crisis of trust. AlphaNews reports that 80% of respondents had a negative view of the Cypriot judicial system: 42% said they did not trust it at all and 38% said they had little trust in it. Only 18% expressed a positive opinion. These data do not prove that Sandygate caused this mistrust, but they show that the case is unfolding in a civic environment already marked by low trust in justice.
The scandal has also fuelled a crisis of confidence in several institutions at once. Police and judicial authorities are accused by some of seeking to discredit or control the investigation, while others reproach the accusers for having publicly exposed elements that had not yet been authenticated. This tension worsened with the search of the home and office of lawyer Nicos Clerides, which turned the case into a debate over professional secrecy and the guarantees of the rule of law.
Sandygate has also placed the media at the centre of civic debate. Cypriot journalists did not merely relay the accusations. As indicated above, some of them went a step further and investigated the documents, examining the inconsistencies linked to the case. They questioned the digital material and highlighted the absence of independent authentication, helping to make the case a test of maturity for the Cypriot media ecosystem.
Finally, Sandygate has contributed to making public debate more confused. The accusations, counter-arguments, doubts about the evidence and political reactions quickly overlapped. The file thus became difficult to follow, at the risk of reinforcing an already highly distrustful reading of Cypriot public life.
Conclusion
Sandygate appears less as a scandal with definitively established contours than as a case revealing the tensions running through Cypriot public life. The initial accusations concerned extremely serious facts involving leading figures. But investigations carried out by several Cypriot media outlets gradually shifted attention toward the strength of the elements presented as evidence. Photos found online, disputed audio and administrative inconsistencies: all these elements turned the file into a debate over the reliability of digital evidence.
This development does not mean that all the accusations should be dismissed, nor that the entire file is necessarily fabricated. Rather, it shows that, in such a sensitive case, independent verification becomes central. As long as the technical examinations, particularly those entrusted to Europol, have not delivered definitive conclusions, it remains difficult to clearly separate established facts, credible allegations, errors of interpretation and possible manipulations.
In the Cypriot electoral context, this uncertainty has taken on a particular political dimension. The scandal directly affected candidates, influenced at least one electoral list and forced several parties to take a public position. It also helped impose themes already sensitive in Cyprus, such as corruption and trust in institutions.
At the level of the public debate, Sandygate has also highlighted an already sensitive climate of mistrust around institutions and political accountability in Cyprus. Yet its broader civic impact remains difficult to assess with certainty. The case has generated strong reactions, which unfolded amid unresolved questions about the authenticity of key documents and the reliability of the materials circulating in the public sphere. In this context, the media contributed to the debate by reporting on the case, examining some of the documents and raising questions about inconsistencies. Importantly, for the first time, journalists went the extra step and did their own fact-checking work on the case. Although this work has not removed the uncertainty surrounding the file, it points to an important development in journalistic practices on the island.
For this reason, Sandygate should be understood less as a settled example of investigative journalism reshaping an election than as a still unresolved case showing how sensitive allegations and disputed digital material can affect a campaign. It has demonstrated how quickly serious accusations can enter the political agenda, but also how difficult it becomes to sustain a clear public debate when evidence remains unauthenticated and information circulates through a mixture of reporting, political reactions and investigative leaks.
Sources
- AlphaNews (2026) – [Online article] “Αποκαλυπτικό: Ρεπορτάζ του 2019 η «αναγγελία» που ακούγεται στο ηχητικό της άφιξης Σάντυ στη Γερμανία”. Online article on the audio message allegedly proving Sandy’s arrival in Germany and the identification of the background sound as an ARTE report on Venezuela. https://www.alphanews.live/cyprus/apokalyptiko-reportaz-tou-2019-i-anangelia-pou-akougetai-sto-ichitiko-tis-afixis-santy-sti-germania/
- AlphaNews (2026) – [Online article] “Αποκαλυπτικό: Σε ιστοσελίδα με test, η φωτογραφία του φερόμενου «μαχαιρώματος» της Σάντυ”. Online article on the reverse image search that found the alleged knife-wound photograph on a German quiz website. https://www.alphanews.live/cyprus/apokalyptiko-se-istoselida-me-test-i-fotografia-tou-feromenou-machairomatos-tis-santy/
- AlphaNews (2026) – [Online article] “Δημοσκόπηση Alpha: Διχάζουν τους πολίτες οι καταγγελίες Δρουσιώτη, πόσο εμπιστεύονται το δικαστικό σύστημα”. Online article on an Alpha/Rai Consultants poll about public attitudes toward Drousiotis’ allegations and trust in the Cypriot judicial system. https://www.alphanews.live/vouleftikes-ekloges-2026/dimoskopisi-alpha-dichazoun-tous-polites-oi-katangelies-drousioti-poso-ebistevontai-to-dikastiko-systima/
- AlphaNews (2026) – [Online article] “Διχασμός για την «Σάντυ»: Ποιοι καλούνται να δώσουν απαντήσεις, νέα στοιχεία και κρίσιμες καταθέσεις”. Online article on the widening investigation into the Sandy case, expected statements, new evidence and the public divide around the affair. https://www.alphanews.live/cyprus/dichasmos-gia-tin-santy-poioi-kalountai-na-dosoun-apantiseis-nea-stoicheia-kai-krisimes-katatheseis/
- AlphaNews (2026) – [Online article] “Υπόθεση Σάντυ: Τα τέσσερα χαρακτηριστικά «τεκμήρια» που κατέρριψε η δημοσιογραφική έρευνα”. Online article summarising four pieces of evidence questioned by AlphaNews’ journalistic investigation: the knife-wound photograph, the Germany audio, the speaker-phone video and the foreign-language messages. https://www.alphanews.live/cyprus/ypothesi-santy-ta-tessera-charaktiristika-tekmiria-pou-katerripse-i-dimosiografiki-erevna/
- Philenews (2026) – [Online article] “The ‘Sandy’ files: Ten key questions the facts raise”. Online article by Ernestos Mousas on ten factual questions and inconsistencies raised by the Sandy file and the documents presented in the Drousiotis allegations. https://en.philenews.com/local/sandy-affair-ten-factual-points-drousiotis-narrative-cyprus/
- Cyprus Mail (2026) – [Online article] “Volt backs Drousiotis as digital evidence presented comes under scrutiny”. Online article by James Morphakis on Volt Cyprus’ public support for Makarios Drousiotis and the scrutiny of digital evidence in the Sandy case. https://cyprus-mail.com/2026/04/17/volt-backs-drousiotis-as-digital-evidence-presented-comes-under-scrutiny
- OSCE/ODIHR (2026) – [PDF report] “Republic of Cyprus, Parliamentary Elections, 24 May 2026: ODIHR Needs Assessment Mission Report”. Official report on the pre-electoral context of the 2026 parliamentary elections in Cyprus. https://odihr.osce.org/sites/default/files/documents/official_documents/2026/03/Cyprus%20Parliamentary%202026_NAM%20Report_18.03.2026.pdf
- Cyprus Mail (2026) – [Online article] “Papadakis removed from Alma ballot amid Drousiotis fallout”. Online article by James Morphakis on Alma’s decision to remove former MEP Dimitris Papadakis from its parliamentary election ballot after the fallout from the Drousiotis allegations. https://cyprus-mail.com/2026/04/07/papadakis-removed-from-alma-ballot-amid-drousiotis-fallout
- Cyprus Mail (2026) – [Online article] “‘Sandy’ evidence dispute deepens as police investigations intensify”. Online article by James Morphakis on the widening police investigation into contested digital material, including forensic inconsistencies, the search for a second phone, deleted message-generating applications and Sandy’s reported acknowledgement that she had created hundreds of SMS messages herself. https://cyprus-mail.com/2026/04/15/sandy-evidence-dispute-deepens-as-police-investigations-intensify
- Politis (2026) – [Online article] “Political Parties Struggle for Control Amid Sandy Scandal Fallout”. Online article by Katerina Eliadi on the impact of the Sandy scandal on the Cypriot parliamentary election campaign and party strategies. https://en.politis.com.cy/politics/1002411/political-parties-struggle-for-control-amid-sandy-scandal-fallout
- Politis (2026) – [Online article] “From Search Warrants to Political Claims: Fallout Grows Around ‘Sandy’ Case”. Online article on the legal and political fallout from the police searches in the Sandy case, including concerns over lawyer-client confidentiality and claims made by Makarios Drousiotis. https://www.en.politis.com.cy/politics/politics-players-power/998284/from-search-warrants-to-political-claims-fallout-grows-around-sandy-case
- Politis (2026) – [Online article] “‘Sandy’ Case: Awaiting Europol to Clarify the Picture”. Online article by Nearchos Kyprianou on the pending Europol forensic report and its expected role in clarifying the authenticity of the messages, audio files, photographs and videos in the Sandy case. https://en.politis.com.cy/social-lens/1002751/sandy-case-awaiting-europol-to-clarify-the-picture
- Politis (2026) – [Online article] “Βουλευτικές εκλογές 2026: Ανατομία μιας δημοκρατικής… αναστάτωσης” [“2026 parliamentary elections: Anatomy of a democratic… upheaval”]. Online article by Katerina Iliadi on the pre-election climate ahead of Cyprus’s 24 May 2026 parliamentary elections, including the impact of the “Sandy” case on the campaign, its domination of the news agenda since 30 March, and its apparent benefit for Volt and its candidate Makarios Drousiotis. https://www.politis.com.cy/politis-news/politiki/1002240/boyleftikes-2026-apomenoyn-treis-evdomades-ghia-diekdikisi-psifon-sispirosi-epanapatrismo-miosi-apokhis-provoli-theseon-kai-ipopsifion
- Philenews (2026) – [Online article] “The woman at the centre of the Drousiotis allegations was taken abroad for her protection. This is what her lawyer says happened.” Online article by Michalis Hadjivasilis on Nicos Clerides’ account of Sandy’s alleged approach to him, the material she handed over and her reported transfer abroad for protection. https://en.philenews.com/local/lawyer-nikos-clerides-has-revealed-that-sandy-was-smuggled-to-a-european-country-with-embassy-assistance-for-her-protection-and-says-he-will-testify-and-hand-over-all-evidence-if-asked-by-police-live/
