‘We’re poor: give us the money’

By Charlie Charalambous

PISTOL-WIELDING bank robbers, claiming poverty, got away with £60,000 in a daylight heist in central Nicosia yesterday morning.

Two masked robbers, wearing crash helmets, stormed into the bank holding up the cashiers and demanded money because “we are poor”.

The heist took place at a Bank of Cyprus branch around 9.30am on Nicosia’s busy Diagorou Street.

“The robbers entered the bank wearing crash helmets, and one of them brandished a pistol at the cashier while the other jumped over the counter to grab the money,” a police statement said.

They fled the scene on a motocross bike, with one of the men firing a warning shot in the air, an eye-witnesses said.

Police found the bike abandoned at a nearby block of flats on Byron Avenue at 11am.

One of the customers at the bank managed to raise the alarm; police arrived at the scene within minutes and the chase to hunt down robbers began, with the help of a police helicopter.

In the wake of yesterday’s hold-up police again raised the issue of lax bank security measures.

“The bank branch did not operate a closed circuit TV system. For some time now the police has advised banks to implement such measures,” said yesterday’s police statement.

The two assailants are described as being aged between 25 and 30, of medium build and 1.7 metres tall.

Police said they were confident of making arrests on the basis of the evidence gathered so far.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.