The issue of the purchase of a 29-square-meter studio apartment in 2023 by the company “Where About Travels” and the manner in which it was provocatively misrepresented is yet another clear attempt to smear the President of the Independent Citizens’ Movement “HOPE for Democracy,” Maria Karistianou, and to mislead public opinion, as noted in a party statement.
As the statement notes, “a single business transaction by a former associate of hers was distorted so that certain individuals could maliciously and unscrupulously label her an ‘auction vulture.’
The facts, however, are as follows:
1.] In 2022, Maria Karystianou founded a real estate management company together with her former partner, Yiannis Moisidis, and each contributed a property they had owned previously.
2.] As evidenced by the data published in the General Commercial Registry (GEMI), this company did not engage in any substantial commercial activity. Its only assets are two properties, which were not even put to use (e.g., for rental). In other words, they did not generate any profit.
3.] One of these two properties is the much-talked-about 29-square-meter studio apartment, which was indeed acquired at the initiative and under the coordination of her former partner through an online auction, as he himself publicly confirmed.
4.] This process took place six months after the crime in Tempi, during a period when Maria Karystianou was devoted not only to her medical practice—from which she earns her living—but also to the fight for justice for her daughter, Marthis, through legal and other actions in Greece and Europe.
5.] As evidenced by this company’s financial statements published in the General Commercial Registry (GEMI), its revenue for 2023 and 2024 is virtually zero. However, it strikes all of us as odd that the journalists who covered this issue with such fervor concealed the company’s financial data from the public—data that ultimately proves whether or not it actually carried out any operations.
6.] We would expect—and reasonably demand—that the media cover with the same fervor the numerous real estate purchases by political figures, which, in 2024 alone (the 2025 “Declaration of Assets,” covering the year 2024), exceeded a total of 20 million euros, with no indication of the source of the funds (!!!), that is, where did our politicians—protected by the impunity granted by Article 86 of the Constitution—find the money to make all these exorbitantly expensive purchases? Luxury residences, factories, and historic properties in Paris and London, purchased by people who enter politics with 2–3 properties and leave with 30–40.
7.] For our Movement, ever since its founding (and until we resolve it), the seizure of the assets of hundreds of thousands of citizens by funds and servicers—a practice that took root under Alexis Tsipras and flourished under Kyriakos Mitsotakis. After all, restoring justice in this matter lies at the very heart of our Movement’s founding declaration, and the concrete action we take on this issue will be the clearest proof that our Movement has come to make a difference and fight corruption. That is precisely why they are attacking us so cowardly and immorally with endless mudslinging and malicious slander.
But we will not be blackmailed, we will not be intimidated, and we will not back down from what we have clearly stated and will announce in detail at our upcoming event. The central focus of our program is to confront the provocative lawlessness of the funds, which takes place under a regime of government protection and support—a phenomenon that we will soon expose in its entirety, so that the system may once again be laid bare.”