The supreme court has rejected attorney-general George Savvides’ appeal against the annulment of the search warrant for two safety deposit boxes belonging to social media personality Natalie Tziapoura, ruling that the police had not been presented with sufficient evidence.

Arguing that the affidavit submitted to the police provided insufficient proof, the supreme court said that the court of first instance should not have approved the search warrant, which had been issued in the context Tziapoura’s suspected involvement in the case surrounding Georgios Christodoulou Zavrantonas.

The supreme court has now argued that investigators primarily relied on hearsay, rather than factual evidence, with the police referring to information received from a person “whose credibility had been positively assessed” as their primary source of information.

This information, the police said, suggested that at least two businesses owned by Tziapoura – a beauty salon and a jewellery store – had been used for the purpose of money laundering, recording “unjustified excess profits”.

In its decision, the supreme court ruled that, while investigators were not obliged to reveal the identity of informants, they were nevertheless required to explain how the information had been obtained, and whether or not it supported further conclusions.

“There should be some kind of documentation from where and how the information led to the final results … Evidence must be given and not just conclusions,” the supreme court said.

In addition, the court ruled that the search warrant exceeded the testimony presented before the court of first instance, as investigators were initially searching for sums of cash, rather than other items such as jewellery and other valuables that were later seized as part of the operations.

Furthermore, the court found that there was insufficient evidence to link Tziapoura to the offences under investigation regarding Zavrantonas, and that therefore, there was no justification for searching her bank safety deposit boxes.

“In the present case, the necessary evidence is lacking to determine, objectively, that there was with necessary sufficiency the involvement of the appellant with the offences under investigation and, through it, with the area requested to be investigated,” the court said.

Ultimately, the court rejected Savvides’ claim that previous searches carried out as part of the investigation had substantiated the police’s suspicions, arguing that the relevant searches failed to prove reliable as the affidavit failed to explain whether they were based on the same evidence or other information presented to the authorities.

The decision is part of an investigation into an alleged organised crime network associated with Zavrantonas, who is currently on trial again for charges relating to the possession of 15 kilograms of cocaine. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2022.

The case is being retried after a relevant order was issued by the appeals court.