Pafos Live 19 September 2024
Five foreigners were arrested by the Pafos Police in the framework of a coordinated operation for illegal stay in the territory of the Republic and illegal employment.
According to Pafos Assistant Police Director of Operations, Michalis Nicolaou, yesterday members of the Pafos Aliens and Immigration Service and the Police Headquarters, in cooperation with officers of the Inspection Service of the Ministry of Labour, conducted a coordinated operation in the context of the effort to combat the phenomenon of illegal stay in the territory of the Republic, as well as illegal employment and employment.
During the operation, Nicolaou said, they identified and arrested two persons illegally staying in the Republic from Nepal and Armenia aged 35 and 50.
Furthermore, he said, at a hotel in Kato Paphos they found three other persons aged 22, 31 and 39, who were working at the said hotel without permission from the competent authority.
Subsequently, he continued, the three persons were arrested, taken to the Department of Minor Offences, interrogated and charged in writing with illegal employment, as well as their employer for the offence of illegal employment.
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Filenews
Illegal buying and selling of stolen trucks with smugglers in the occupied areas is estimated by the Police to be behind the theft of two trucks of €35,000 from a company in the Aradippou area, for which three people were arrested. This is the second such case in the last two months in the district of Larnaka.
Last July, a 38-year-old man was arrested after stealing a vehicle and a towed platform and attempting unsuccessfully to load a lifting machine worth €40,000, with the aim, it is believed, to sell it in the occupied areas.
The complaint for the second case was made at Aradippou Police Station on September 5, by a building materials transport company. The two trucks were stolen from the fenced area of the company's warehouses in Aradippou. Three days later, police located the two trucks in a wooded area of Koshi and on September 12 proceeded to arrest a 42-year-old man, after analyzing the CCTV footage obtained.
In the course of the examinations, testimony was obtained about the involvement in the case of two other persons, against whom arrest warrants had been issued. They are a 41-year-old man, who was arrested on September 14, and a 38-year-old man, who was located on Tuesday night. All those arrested were released until the examinations were completed and the case was registered with the courts. The 41-year-old, however, was re-arrested in another case involving fines warrants.
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A joint operation by the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) and the SBA was described by activists as one of the largest attacks against illegal trapping and trade of protected birds in Cyprus.
The raid followed a complaint by CABS staff, who – attracted by the sound of an illegal bird call machine – discovered a huge illegal bird trapping facility near Ormidia (Larnaka district).
"After seeing poachers throwing stones to lure the birds into their nets, our team then carefully withdrew and alerted the SBA police who responded quickly and managed to catch and arrest three suspects in the act," said CABS spokeswoman Stefania Travaglia, who said the men were completely taken by surprise by the sudden raid.
After the poachers were arrested, environmentalists helped police dismantle the nets and carefully release a total of 69 protected birds, including Ampelopoulia, Kipotsirovakos, Schinopotamidae, as well as an Eagle and a Thupi – a species endemic to the island. "We were shocked to see the damage these people caused to nature in just a few hours. The good news is that all the birds were successfully released and can now continue their journey." Travaglia adding that the Police-SBA confiscated all trapping paraphernalia and the car used by the trappers.
CABS thanked SBA officers for their swift response and outreach and called on authorities to also investigate suspects of possible tax evasion and money laundering gained from their illegal activity." This was not an elderly man trapping some birds for the kitchen, but an organised gang of criminals who will almost certainly earn tens of thousands of euros a year by killing and selling the protected birds," Travaglia concluded.
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The Police in Limassol were alerted last night after information was given about a vehicle that had explosives and was parked in the parking lot of Molos.
The vehicle, which appears to belong to a foreign person, was placed under surveillance. This morning a pyrotechnic technician and members of the police opened the car and proceeded to check, but the tests did not find anything suspicious in it.
The vehicle is expected to be transferred to the Limassol Police Department for further examinations.
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Cyprus Mail
The number of arrests made in connection with the violent episodes which broke out at Sunday’s abandoned Limassol derby between Ael and Apollon rose to nine on Wednesday night, with both of those latest arrestees being handed remands.
Two men, aged 24 and 22 years old, appeared in court in Limassol on Wednesday, and were both handed three-day remands.
Earlier on Wednesday, three people had been remanded in custody for four days, while four people were remanded in custody for six days on Tuesday after being arrested after the abandoned football match on Sunday night.
Sunday evening had been marred by violent scenes inside and outside Limassol’s Alphamega Stadium, with a large number of fans without tickets having entered the stadium.
Flares were then lit in the stands and Molotov cocktails were found by police, who then called for everyone inside the stadium to leave and be rechecked for tickets and banned items.
However, the fans refused to leave the stadium, and the match was abandoned.
Justice Minister Marios Hartsiotis on Tuesday called on football clubs to isolate what he referred to as “100, 500 or even 1,000 mindless thugs”, adding that those responsible for the incidents “fired flares at people who were simply doing their jobs”.
He also criticised the Cyprus Football Association (CFA) for not “taking further action” in advance of the fixture, adding that the government had been urging them to take measures but had not seen sufficient determination to this end.
The violent scenes occurred on just the third week in which away fans were allowed back into football stadiums after having been banned following previous violence earlier in the year.
Justice Minister Marios Hartsiotis had reportedly been in favour of the ban being extended into the new season, but the CFA’s board of directors was unanimous in its decision.
Away fans had been banned from all competitive football matches in January after a firecracker launched from a stand hit a player in the head during a Coca Cola Cup match between Nea Salamina and Apoel, with the player reportedly suffering damaged hearing as a result.
Just days later in January, another Limassol derby was cancelled due to violence inside and outside the Alphamega Stadium.
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A British tourist was on Thursday sentenced to two months in prison in the north after having been convicted for the possession of cannabis.
The man appeared in front of a three-judge panel in court, with senior judge Vedia Berkut Barkin reading out the verdict.
He had landed at the north’s Ercan (Tymbou) airport at around 9.55am on July 27 and had caught the attention of a sniffer dog in the airport’s baggage reclaim hall.
A subsequent search of his suitcase found a total of three grams of cannabis inside.
Barkin said that the small amount of cannabis found in the man’s suitcase was an indication that he had it in his possession for his own personal use and had no intent to supply or sell it on. She also pointed out that he had been held in custody since July 31.
On the other hand, she said, “drug crimes are serious crimes”, and for this reason, “deterrent and exemplary punishments must be handed down”.
As such, he was sentenced to two months in prison.
