The former King Constantine II of Greece brought a villa in the St. Aimiliano region of Porto Heli, right next to a mansion belonging to stockbroker Nick Devletoglou who had achieved some notoriety during the Siemens scandal. An investigation by Proto Thema revealed that the mansion was procured at 5 million euros from Lebanese businessman Marc Soursock, even though real estate agents value the property’s real worth at twice that amount. It is said that this purchase may have resulted in the delay in the ex-king’s former plans to construct a 40-acre “palace” worth 1.5 million euros at the Gialeza region, close to the island of Spetses, Porto Heli and Hermione.

The contract for the sale of the property is numbered 23084 and signed on the monring of November 5 at the offices of solicitor Manousos A. Boliotis. The official asset estimation of the property is at 1,529,573.18 euros, that is actually a fifth of the purchase value and a tenth of the estimated real value.

Of particular interest is the fact that the ex-king isn’t listed as the official buyer of the property. Instead, the real estate was purchased by an offshore company known as Torcoll Properties Ltd that is based in Nicosia following its creation for property transactions on April 16, 2014. The company’s only stockholder is listed as “His Majesty King Constantine”.

The same method of transaction was followed for the purchase of the property at Gialeza. The ex-king has stated that the reason for this is due to a law passed in 1994 that expropriated “royal” property and also revoked his citizenship. A courtcase had vindicated the ex-king and Greece was forced to compensate him for the confiscated property. He stated that the creation of an offshore company to by property is necessary due to the fact that he no longer has Greek citizenship.

Marc Sursock who is selling the property to the ex-king is the son of Lebanese aristocrat Cyril Sursock and Donna Vittoria Serra of the Dukes di Cassano. He is also the stepson of Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan.

The above is an article published in Proto Thema newspaper and republished by protothema.gr and protothemanews.com on the 24th of November