‘Man sold asylum forms as work permits’

A BULGARIAN man has been arrested on suspicion of defrauding two compatriots by allegedly getting them work permits for a fee.

Two Bulgarian women had arrived in Cyprus in 2005 and met the 32-year-old suspect who promised to get them work permits for £800.

Neither woman knew each other.

According to Investigator Constantinos Constantinides, the suspect had met the women in the summer of 2005 through a mutual friend and had promised to get them work permits for a fee.

The women would then pay back the suspect in installments.

During yesterday’s remand hearing, the court heard how the suspect would reportedly take the women to the Immigration Offices along with their ID pictures and passports.

After taking them into the offices, he would then give them forms filled out in Greek and bearing their ID pictures at the top. They would in turn pay him the rest of the amount agreed and the women and the suspect would then part company.

The women only found out about the scam when, after working for two years at various pubs on the island, they went to the Bulgarian representative of the PEO trade union and wanted to change their jobs.

It was then that they were informed that the forms they had were in fact request-forms for asylum seekers.

They then told the police, who picked up the suspect on Tuesday.

Upon his arrest, he told officers, “I never took any money”.

Judge Alexandros Paanyiotou remanded the suspect in police custody for four days.

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.