FOUR more persons were yesterday remanded in custody in connection with the snowballing car assembly scam, which has so far implicated police officers and public officials in a week which has seen the resignation of the chief of police and the Justice Minister.
The suspects arrested in a sweep operation on Thursday night are all employed with the Transport Department. During their arraignment yesterday, the court heard that all four were acquainted and had links to senior police officer Yiannakis Panayiotou. They were remanded in custody for eight days on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud, illegal registration of motor vehicles and violation of customs laws. One of the four suspects had been arrested last week but later released due to insufficient evidence.
Panayiotou is under investigation on suspicion of using a car importers dealership registered in his daughter’s name to assemble parts of luxury cars, including Mercedes and BMWs. On Thursday night, Panayiotou was also re-arrested, after his eight-day remand expired.
According to police investigators, Panayiotou and a car mechanic from Nicosia kept a joint bank account from which they paid for the purchase of a damaged car from Germany, which was subsequently sold for £24,000 to another individual from Famagusta. Police said that the state was owed duties amounting to £31,000 pounds just on that vehicle.
Meanwhile police and customs officers yesterday stepped up investigations at car yards and bonded warehouses, confiscating three BMWs (two convertibles and a 318). So far, authorities have confiscated over 30 vehicles, but only a handful of cars have been found to be illegally assembled, as deputy Attorney-general Petros Clerides conceded yesterday.
“We are doing everything we can; investigations are being intensified,” said Clerides on a live radio news show. He went on to distinguish between the spare parts assembly scam and mere import duty evasion. “These are two different cases, and we are looking into both of them.”
Clerides confirmed press reports that customers of illegally assembled cars included a number of unwary police officers. He told of one officer from Paralimni who suspected something amiss and brought in his car to be checked.
Twenty-five testimonies have been gathered so far, and police expect to take another 80 statements from relatives and acquaintances of the detainees.
Communications and Transport Minister Averoff Neophytou yesterday welcomed the progress in investigations, but added that the car scam ring had not yet been fully rooted out. Neophytou also reiterated that the fraud could not have been perpetrated without help from the inside, meaning the civil service.
But the minister also rushed to refute claims that the administration was not doing enough to unearth the affair. The accusations were levelled mostly from main opposition party AKEL, which has spoken of corruption, corrosion and decay in government. Last week, police mounted what many described a botched operation, when valuable documents and evidence were destroyed by suspects as police officers stood by.
The Justice Minister and the chief of police resigned later this week, although neither public official has provided a reason for quitting.
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.
