POLICE yesterday said they had uncovered a Kiti-based syndicate believed to be responsible for at least three bank robberies.
The revelation followed a confession by one of the gang’s alleged members, currently being held in Nicosia Central Prisons, and the subsequent five-day remand of one of the implicated parties’ mothers, whom police also believe to be involved.
Requesting the remand of 47-year-old Pontian Greek Lamara Yiannides yesterday, investigating officer Mamas Parpas told Larnaca District Court that Demetris Tantis, 22, had named her and two of his fellow prisoners as being involved in the robberies.
Parpas said that according to Tantis, the group was responsible for two Limassol bank robberies and one in Larnaca in late 1998, 1999 and early 2000.
Yiannides’ son George is being held on suspicion of committing the most recent robbery.
He was arrested along with Tantis on January 6, the day after the robbery, and the pair are also suspected of being responsible for another raid at the same Limassol Popular Bank branch on October 13, 1999.
The investigating officer told the court that in a statement Tantis said that he, George Yiannides, 28, and another man being held on separate charges and who was not named, had carried out a raid on a Larnaca branch of the Bank of Cyprus on November 27, 1998.
Tantis said that he had driven the getaway car used in the armed robbery. The raiders had at first made their escape on a motorbike which was later fond locked in the basement of a Larnaca apartment building.
Tantis said that he had been waiting for them outside the apartment building and then went to his house to hide the ,14,255 taken from bank.
According to Parpas, Tantis told police that Lamara Yiannides then came to his house and asked her son:”Has the job been done?@ She then took the money to her house, a >granny-flat= in the grounds of Tantis’ house at Kiti, Larnaca.
Tantis told police that he later saw the woman counting the money and that part of it was used to buy furniture for the Yiannides home in Greece and a car for the son.
Police had considered the two most recent cases to be closed in mid-January after Tantis’ father was found to have deposited ,22,000 in a bank account shortly afterwards.
A total of approximately ,82,000 was taken in both robberies, with Tantis’ father Minas, 48, and mother Chrysanthi, 46, also held in connection with the crimes.
