Pafos Live 4 February 2025
More than 2,654 traffic violations were detected and reported during traffic checks carried out by members of the Police, throughout Cyprus, from 27/01/2025 until 02/02/2025.
The members of the Police, in the context of traffic police checks carried out throughout Cyprus, proceeded to 1,139 complaints concerning exceeding the speed limit, 135 complaints for failure to use seat belts by drivers and passengers, 13 complaints for not wearing a protective helmet and 154 complaints for using a mobile phone while driving. There were also 71 complaints for drink-driving, 68 complaints for illegal parking, 24 for parking in disabled areas and 1,050 complaints for committing other traffic offences.
In addition, traffic police checks revealed 23 complaints about drug tests, 100 car seizures and 11 interceptions of two-wheeled vehicles.
Traffic checks continue daily, with the aim of preventing fatal and serious road collisions, but also consolidating proper road consciousness by all road users.
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A jet ski stolen from the coastal area of Geroskipou was found in a forest area of the village of Amargeti. The attackers took it there along with the trolley, which they apparently took and abandoned the jet ski in the deserted area.
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Pafos Press
The Paphos Police proceeded to arrest three people, two women and one man, to facilitate the investigations into an ongoing case of illegal employment, while the owner was also summoned to the Police.
According to the Police, members of the Paphos Aliens and Immigration Service went to the rural area of Mantria at 10:30 on Sunday morning where, after discreet surveillance, they located andThey arrested two foreigners from Nepal and one foreigner originally from Vietnam who, as it turned out, were employed illegally. The 50-year-old owner from Cyprus was also located at the scene and was summoned to give a statement about the case at the Kouklia police station.
The examinations are continuing by the Kouklia Police.
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Filenews
The Administrative Court upheld the detention and deportation decrees of a European citizen who had been convicted of rape, corruption of a minor and sexual exploitation of a minor. This decision was delivered on 31 January 2025, following a retrial of the case, following instructions from the Supreme Constitutional Court.
The case was brought to a retrial following a decision of the Supreme Constitutional Court on 15 January 2025, which answered affirmatively to a legal question from the Prosecutor General. The question concerned whether the existence of a criminal conviction could justify the adoption of the measure of expulsion of a European citizen if, from the circumstances leading up to the conviction, such conduct emerges which constitutes a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat affecting one of the fundamental interests of society.
Initially, the Administrative Court and the Court of Appeal had annulled the detention and deportation orders, considering that a criminal conviction alone was not sufficient to take this measure. However, the Supreme Constitutional Court reversed this approach, pointing out that all relevant facts must be taken into account, including the nature and gravity of the offence, as well as the circumstances in which it was committed.
During the retrial of the case, the Administrative Court, in a new composition, considered that the competent authorities had sufficiently substantiated the deportation decision, as the convicted person constitutes a continuing threat to public order. The Court relied on both the judgment of the Supreme Constitutional Court and relevant judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union, concluding that the crimes for which the applicant was convicted belong to the category of particularly serious crime with a cross-border dimension in the EU.
The case was handled by the Public Prosecutor of the Republic, Mrs. Yianna Hadjihanna, and the Lawyer of the Republic A', Mrs. Katia Chatzidimitriou.
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Eight cases of burglary and theft committed in Nicosia are to be solved, following the arrest of a 58-year-old man.
Initially, the 58-year-old was arrested on 27/01/2025 for facilitating investigations, in relation to a case of residential burglary and theft committed on 25/01/2025 in Nicosia, where various jewellery and other items, worth approximately €6,000, were stolen.
The 58-year-old was brought before the Nicosia District Court on 28/01/2025, where an eight-day detention order was issued against him. During the examinations, a search was carried out in a warehouse in Nicosia, where a large number of items were located and received, such as watches, jewellery, paintings, silverware, etc.
During the investigation, testimony emerged against the 58-year-old that he was involved in seven more cases of residential burglary and theft of property, with a total value of more than €110,000. The burglaries were committed between the years 2019-2024. The 58-year-old was arrested on a court warrant in those cases. ICF Nicosia continues exams
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A serious traffic accident occurred today in the morning, at 03:40, in Limassol, when two women fell from a moving car, resulting in serious injury.
The incident occurred on Tsiflikoudion Street, when an open-roof saloon car turned right at the junction with Franklin Roosevelt. Two of the four women in the vehicle fell on the road, resulting in serious injuries and being taken to Limassol General Hospital, where they are being treated. The two are reportedly out of danger.
The other two passengers got out of the vehicle, while the driver fled the scene of the accident. Apparently, the five people were returning from fun, with the 35-year-old driver taking the women to their hotel.
The police investigation found that the two injured men, aged 44 and 45, were sitting in the back of the car, out of seats, with their feet in the back seats.
As for the driver, the police proceeded to identify and then arrest him. A case of reckless and dangerous driving, transportation of passengers in unsafe parts of the vehicle and abandonment of a traffic accident scene is being investigated against him.
The man was taken into custody.
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A fire in a car parked at Kyprianou Spyrou Avenue in Limassol broke out at 3:00 am on Tuesday.
According to police, the vehicle appears to belong to a 19-year-old and according to preliminary investigations, the fire appears to have been set maliciously, possibly with the use of flammable material.
Members of the Police and the Fire Brigade rushed to the scene and extinguished the fire.
The scene was cordoned off, with members of the Police conducting investigations.
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The hearing of the case concerning the Al Jazeera television report, as well as the naturalization conditions of two foreign investors, began to touch the substance.
In yesterday's proceedings before the Nicosia Assize Court, the said judiciary approved the request of the representative of the prosecution, Haris Karaolidou, for the British real estate agent, Tony Kay, from the United Kingdom, where he is located, to testify via videoconference.
The second development also had to do with Tony Kay. Following yesterday's hearing, the third prosecution witness, Sergeant Christos Tsiolis, submitted evidence and was cross-examined by the defendants' defense lawyers. These documents relate to visual material, i.e. short videos and photographs, taken from Tony Kay's personal computer.
These visual documents (12 videos, 16 photos) present the former speaker of the Parliament, Dimitris Syllouris and the land development entrepreneur and former MP, Christakis Giovanis, along with people of Asian origin at social events.
It should be noted that the defense lawyer of Mr. Syllouris (1st defendant), Christos Triantaphyllides, raised on several occasions the issue of the evidence in question and specifically their relevance to the case. This was also the line he took during Mr Tsiolis' cross-examination. For her part, the representative of the prosecution, lawyer of Republic A, Haris Karaolidou, countered that the material in question relates to actions of the two defendants (Syllouris and Giovannis) related to the offences for which they are accused.
It should be noted that after the submission of the evidence and its presentation, the prosecution witness of the Police, Christos Tsiolis, was cross-examined by the lawyers of the three defendants. George Papaioannou, representing Christakis Giovannis, during Mr. Tsiolis' cross-examination, also focused on Al Jazeera's online report that preceded the well-known video of the network's journalists under cover and their contacts with accused naturalization of an alleged Chinese investor. Mr. Papaioannou submitted a series of questions about what had been published in August 2020 (Cyprus Papers) and referred to the naturalization of Nikolai Gornosky, for whose naturalization Mr. Syllouris and his client are facing charges. According to Papaioannou, in August 2020 Al Jazeera had falsely presented that Gornoski had a criminal record: "It is my position that as proved by certificates filed in the context of this case from various countries, his country of origin and his country of residence, he was a clean criminal record and what the Al Jazeera report said was untrue."
For his part, Andreas Pittatzis, defense lawyer of Antonis Antoniou, director of companies of Mr. Christakis Giovanis, focused on two points. The first concerned police investigations that began after the summer of 2020 when Al Jazeera published personal details and documents of investors who received Cypriot citizenship. Mr. Pittatzis wanted to indicate that the Police at that time did not investigate possible criminal offenses involving the disclosure of personal data. He questioned Mr. Tsiolis, who replied that what was being investigated was the source of the leak of the documents to Al Jazeera.
The second point concerned the Al Jazeera video that aired in October 2020 and showed the contacts of the news network's journalists under cover and the defendants, with the aim of naturalizing an alleged Chinese investor with a criminal record. During the cross-examination of Mr. Tsiolis, Mr. Pittatzis, attempted to suggest that MOKAS had taken a contradictory stance. Specifically, he referred to a complaint he had submitted through his law office to MOKAS in October 2019 about the journalists under cover. Mr. Pittatzis then referred to MOKAS' announcement (he described it as contradictory and was asked to withdraw the characterization) in October 2020 shortly after the video was shown publicly. According to Mr. Pittatzis, Mokas' announcement at the time (10/2020) stated that it had not investigated the complaint of his law firm (2019), because there was no financial transaction. Mr. Pittatzis, with his submission, wanted to demonstrate through Mr. Tsiolis' cross-examination that MOKAS had expressed other positions to the latter in November 2020: "MOKAS exactly one month before this position they told you, that is, that we did not report specific persons, had issued a statement that the reason they did not investigate is that no financial transaction took place", said, among others, Mr. Pittatzis. It should be noted that Mr. Tsiolis during his cross-examination had put forward the position that his role in the investigative work on the case was helpful.
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Cyprus Mail
Two men were on Monday handed prison sentences of 45,376 and a half years each in Turkey for operating a ponzi scheme which funnelled part of its earnings through northern Cyprus.
The pair, ringleader Mehmet Aydin and his older brother Fatih Aydin, had founded and operated a scheme called the “Ciftlik Bank”, and had been found guilty of establishing a criminal organisation and fraud.
Their scheme, called Ciftlik Bank, defrauded users of over 1.6 billion TL (around €250 million in 2017), with Turkey’s Capital Markets Board (SPK) having estimated that over 100m TL of that (around €16m at the time) was transferred to a company in Cyprus called Fame Game, and then onwards to the Aydins’ personal accounts.
According to the BBC, Mehmet Aydin had said he set up Fame Game in the north “to avoid paying tax”, while news website Haber Global reported that his brother was listed as a co-founder “because companies in Cyprus had to be established with at least two partners”.
They were found guilty on a total of 4,414 counts at Istanbul’s Anadolu court, though both pleaded their innocence.
“I did not do it with the intention of defrauding people. I did not defraud anyone. I had no intention of defrauding people,” Mehmet Aydin, who had previously been a rapper, told the court.
The sentence is the second-longest to have been given in recorded history, with only Chamoy Thipyaso, the Thai woman who was sentenced to 141,078 years behind bars after setting up a pyramid scheme of her own, having been handed a longer sentence.
Ciftlik Bank was founded by the Aydin brothers in 2016 as an “online game”, and allowed those partaking to purchase “virtual animals and produce” for real money.
It was claimed that the virtual animals were actually real animals being raised in various facilities in Turkey, and that as such, users could hope to see a return on investment when the meat and milk from the virtual animals was sold.
Around half a million users signed up to the scheme, but a complaint was filed towards the end of 2017 to Turkey’s Capital Markets Board (SPK) after the promised return on investment failed to materialise.
Mehmet Aydin’s then-wife Sila Sosyal was detained shortly afterwards, but he was later spotted in Uruguay driving a Ferrari. After being a wanted man for around three years, he surrendered to Turkey’s consulate in the Brazilian city of Sao Paolo in 2021, before being flown back to the country.
