Filenews 24 January 2026 - by Giorgos Kallinikou
I have been following our Police for the last few days and I am trying on the one hand to contain my enthusiasm so as not to turn into a lover. On the other hand, my emotion for the awesome action of the last few days is so great that I find it difficult to hold back my tears. Within a few days, the dishonoured made more arrests in Larnaca than they did in previous years.
It only took a street fight, a few shots in the middle of the city, an episode with axes and crowbars, which looked more like a scene from a Netflix series than a Sunday afternoon in a country town. And here it is, where the relentless leadership of the Police, at all its levels, took impressive action.
Let the Chicago police be blind! Of course, to tell the truth, there was that impressive detail, which was enough to ignite the blood in the Headquarters and the Police Department of the city. Which one? But the blood, of course. Which was not spilled anywhere, but at the entrance of the local Police Department. They dared to smear the carpet on its doorstep, the atheists of the conflict...
Somehow, out of nowhere, we discovered that in Larnaca there are not only cafes, hotels and photos for tourist brochures. There are, listen-listen, factions, blackmail, "protection" with a price list, security guards with suspicious connections, people on trial for attempted murder and businessmen who allegedly interfere in judicial proceedings.
All this, of course, was invisible until last Saturday afternoon. Then they suddenly became obvious. So far, 11 arrests (or maybe more, with the speed with which people are handcuffed, we lost track). Some for throwing shots, a man on trial, "known to the authorities", people who had been involved again and again...
Well-known, yes. Obviously, though, not well-known enough to bother before. The streets had to be filled with blood for the Police to realize that they had to pick them up. Well-known yes. Apparently, however, not so well known that they were put under substantial surveillance when they asked for €7,000 initially and then €1,000 per month to sell "protection", as if it were a subscription package.
Yes, dear friends, we speak with sarcasm. This is also a way to endure the huge absurdities in this place. You see, in Cyprus we have organized crime. But we also have organized negligence. With a state seal and tacit tolerance.
And because we use sarcasm as a method of highlighting the hypocrisy and mockery of society by the authorities, the tormenting questions come to pierce our minds. These are the questions that every sensible person will ask and which are not answered by those who have a duty to do so.
Where have you been for so long? Where was the Police? Where was its leadership? Where was the Larnaca Police Department? Where have the previous Ministers of Justice been? Why did the city center have to be turned into a battlefield in order to move? Why did we have to see axes, gunshots and injured people to start the investigations? Was there no information before? Were there no complaints? Were there no factions? Or did all of them appear en masse on Saturday, as if they sprang up from the ground?
The answer is simple and at the same time annoying: There were gentlemen, but you didn't dare or didn't want to touch them. For years. And now, within a few days, you are handing out handcuffs as if you are taking them out in a sell-off.
This means police efficiency. Except that this "success" is actually a confession of failure. Because every handcuff today corresponds to a failure of yesterday. Any survey today is an omission yesterday. Any press release about "rapid developments" is a cynical reminder that until the state was exposed, it pretended not to see.
Somewhere here the most bitter political question arises: Should the Minister of Justice be changed at the right time for them to start acting? Did he have to change his face at the top so that the system remembers that there is organized crime? If this is indeed the case, then we are not just talking about inadequacy, but about institutional decline. For a state that functions only when it is publicly exposed, only when it has no other choice.
This is not a success. This is a resounding admission that the system has failed to protect society. And as long as we continue to applaud the arrests, instead of demanding responsibility for the many years of inaction, the same work will be recycled: First blood, then statements, then operations, then silence, until the next episode.
It is the time when society must demand something more radical than simple "lightning operations". A law is finally needed that really punishes those who show negligence or incompetence in their duty in the public sector. No more disciplinary-parodies. No more internal investigations that end in nowhere. When inaction costs human lives and allows organized crime to act undisturbed, it is not a simple mistake but complicity.
Organized crime, gentlemen of the leadership of the Police, was not born last Saturday. It's just that, that afternoon, she couldn't hide anymore. When the mafia settles its differences a few meters from the Police, the problem is not only the criminals. It is also the state, which for years pretended not to see. This negligence must finally disappear.
