The undercover video that shook the EU presidency

Eight and a half minutes of video, amplified by an anonymous account on X, plunged the island of Cyprus into a political and media storm the day after the inauguration of the Cypriot presidency of the Council of the European Union.

A hidden camera captures the entourage of the island’s president, Nikos Christodoulides, discussing shady dealings. Nothing more is needed to evoke the imagery of corruption.

What interests us in this story is that the language of undercover reporting has now become replicable as a tool for disinformation as well: hidden cameras, fake identities, “stolen” conversations, and cinematic editing are part of the grammar used to expose abuses of power. But they are also tools that can be used to manufacture a case, steer a country, poison a political semester, or simply settle scores.

This newsletter starts here: with a video that forced Cyprus into an impossible choice, treat it as a political scandal or as foreign interference, and, above all, with the mystery that consumes everything else: who made it, and why now.

This issue is written by Sacha and edited by Luigi.

An investigation without a byline

On January 8, 2026, an unknown account publishes on X a video of roughly eight minutes, apparently filmed with hidden cameras in restaurants and hotel rooms. Three figures appear: Charalambos Charalambous (chief of staff and brother-in-law of President Nikos Christodoulides), former energy minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis, and businessman Giorgos Chrysochos (Cyfield).

The video is not a rough, unpolished leak, as often happens in similar cases with footage produced by activist groups. It is edited like a mini-documentary in English, complete with a voiceover, alternating undercover clips with archival footage. It resembles an investigation by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit—the team that has produced high-level investigative video series on the island, such as Cyprus Papers—or by another major broadcaster specializing in this format.

The thesis is stated immediately at the outset: the campaign of Prime Minister Nikos Christodoulides allegedly used “illegal” funding disguised as donations to circumvent the €1 million cap on political contributions. The first figure the video places at the center is former energy minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis. We see him speaking to an off-camera interlocutor (presented as an investor) and explaining the mechanism in practical, almost instructional terms: “In the elections they have a cap of about €1 million… sometimes they have to depend on cash.” He then doubles down, in the same covertly recorded sequences, repeating that “it has to be cash,” that the money “go there with cash,” and that it is spent “in cash”—outside traceable channels.

The narration then introduces Charalambos Charalambous, head of the president’s office and his brother-in-law, as the man “you call when you need cash,” and immediately shows him asserting an operational role inside the presidential palace: “We are the main contacts here… at the palace.” In one scene, Charalambous—again filmed covertly—is captured proposing a “clean” strategy to channel money while securing institutional backing: contributions framed as corporate social responsibility initiatives (CSR), even citing the example of an American who allegedly wanted to make a €500,000 “contribution.”

The most striking moment comes when the former energy minister, Lakkotrypis, says that he is working to ensure that Andrei Kosogov, a Russian oligarch, is not sanctioned in Europe and, when asked “how?”, replies bluntly: “I speak to the President.” Immediately afterward, the edit cuts to a reference to a €75,000 donation “to the presidential palace” and to the detail of a permit allegedly obtained within two weeks.

The final figure to appear is Giorgos Chrysochos, CEO of Cyfield, a major Cypriot real estate group. He is shown boasting about a close and frequent relationship with the President, culminating in the remark, “It’s like my girlfriend.” This proximity, too, is linked to the donation circuit, including direct contributions to the first lady, with the implicit suggestion that constant presence at the government’s philanthropic events guarantees access and political influence. The video, in fact, refers to a fund or charitable body connected to the first lady, portrayed as a possible shortcut for turning “philanthropy” into access to power.

The video, however, provides no documentary evidence to substantiate the alleged dealings beyond the selected dialogues. Interviewed by OCCRP, the Cypriot journalist Christodoulos Mavroudis described it this way: “It obviously looks well-produced, heavily edited. It did look to be an effort to distort the context. Despite that, it appears that what was being talked about to be scandalous and potentially criminal.”

When a scandal becomes a geopolitical case

The immediate repercussions are already measurable. Two senior resignations within a few days; a criminal and institutional investigation; and an elected president forced to mount a simultaneous defense of his inner circle and of the country’s credibility.

The government has already described the affair as a “hybrid attack,” pointing to disinformation and signs allegedly consistent with Russian-linked campaigns aimed at undermining Cyprus’s geopolitical repositioning. At the same time, Cyprus has sought technical assistance from foreign partners to determine the origin of the footage and whether it was manipulated.

The timing is central. The video was published just one day after the inauguration of Cyprus’s semester at the helm of the EU Council, marked by a highly symbolic ceremony in the capital, Nicosia, attended by senior European figures, from Ursula von der Leyen to Volodymyr Zelensky. This was no routine pageantry, but a public demonstration of a shift toward a more explicitly pro-Western and pro-Ukraine stance by a country that has historically leaned toward Russia. Moscow has long been an actor on the island with tangible interests, both financial and political. Against this backdrop, the video immediately becomes something more than a domestic corruption scandal: it reads as a fragment of a broader geopolitical move.

Undercover as a method, undercover as a weapon

And this is why the most important question—like in every undercover story—is the one that consumes all the others: who was undercover? The format recalls a high-level sting operation. Pulling it off requires not only deep experience in the field, but also the ability to demonstrate access and to promise concrete benefits. In short, it is not something that can be improvised overnight, nor is it something just anyone can carry out. This grammar has a striking precedent in recent Cypriot history: Al Jazeera’s undercover investigation into the “golden passports,” which showed politicians ready to assist a fake investor and led to top-level resignations and the abolition of the tainted program. Viewed through that lens, one hypothesis is that the video emerges from a lineage of anti-corruption journalism or activism.

But one detail sits uneasily with the idea of “journalism” in the classical sense: there is no newsroom signing the video, and the method used is anything but transparent—just as the manner of its publication is opaque. Fact Check Cyprus, for instance, flagged the “dubious” nature of the account that disseminated it (a profile showing elements associated with AI-generated images, even if the video itself does not appear to contain such traces). This opens the door to the alternative hypothesis: that the video is not an investigation at all, but rather an influence operation—foreign or domestic—that uses the mimicry of undercover journalism as a Trojan horse.

And this brings us to what concerns us most. In this context, undercover work is a double-edged tool. On the one hand, it is the technique that can bring to light what no other method would ever reveal. On the other hand, when undercover material is anonymous and opaque, devoid of editorial accountability, it can become indistinguishable from a psy-op. Because undercover reporting does not end with the hidden camera, it is defined by the responsibility assumed by those who publish—by explaining their motives, providing context, and verifying what they have gathered.

Until the next Debrief,
Sacha and Luigi.

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