By George Psyllides
POLICE yesterday arrested the Mukhtar of Kato Pyrgos and a farmer from the remote area east of Polis in connection with illegal transfers of Turkish Cypriot land.
Five suspended Land Survey Department staff are already in custody in connection with the same case.
The Mukhtar was arrested shortly after 1pm by officers from CID headquarters who were dispatched to the area yesterday to investigate the case.
The farmer was arrested later in the afternoon.
It is thought that many more residents of the greater Tylliria area could be involved in the scam.
Earlier yesterday, the CID officer heading the investigation told reporters from Kato Pyrgos that there were two police teams looking into the case.
” One team is here and another one in Nicosia.
” The investigation extends to all the free areas and will continue at a fast pace.
” I promise quick results,”Tassos Panayiotou said.
Earlier on, the CID had questioned the Mukhtar at the local police station before arresting him.
Residents of the area said the illegal transfers had been an open secret but no official report had been filed to authorities until the case broke.
The case first emerged in August after the Chairman of the House Refugee Committee, Aristofanis Georgiou, revealed that Turkish Cypriot land had been illegally transferred and subsequently sold.
It returned to the limelight last week after it was leaked to the media that several land survey employees could be implicated in the case.
Reports said the suspects in the scam, allegedly carried out between September and October last year, were residents of the area who found land belonging to people who did not possess any title deeds.
They allegedly managed to obtain a notarised witness testimony that they had been cultivating or using the land for the past 40 years, and the land survey officials involved issued titles deeds in their names.
The land was then sold for large amounts of money.
In the main case under investigation, it was reported that land belonging to five Turkish Cypriots had been sold to an investment company for £972, 197.
