Two held over heroin deaths

TWO Nicosia men were yesterday remanded in custody for seven days in connection with a heroin trafficking ring that has already caused the death of ten people this year, police confirmed.

The two men, a 24 and a 27-year-old, were arrested over the past 48 hours. They are suspected of being the suppliers of two men who died from after taking heroin last weekend in Nicosia. The men were drug users and friends, leading to suspicions they were probably killed by the same, possibly doctored, heroin.

The police operation to clamp down on heroin trade on the island has so far netted four suspects. Last week, a man and a woman were also arrested and are currently in police custody.

Police fear the death toll could increase after fears of a batch of doctored heroin circulating on the market.

“What we can safely say is that if there is doctored heroin on the market. Dealers are making a profitable business,” Police Chief Tassos Panayiotou said last week.

Health Minister Dina Akkelidou last week urged society to take the drug problem more seriously. Akkelidou said the problem had been ignored for far too long, and that the consequences of “state apathy,” were now catching up.

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.