POLICE have arrested a man from Paphos suspected of having conned just over 20 companies and shops around the island out of thousands of pounds worth of merchandise, ranging from chickens to plasma screen televisions.
The 40-year-old suspect was arrested by Paphos police after being named by his alleged accomplice, who is serving a three-year prison sentence.
Yesterday, a Nicosia judge remanded Panicos Charalambous in police custody for eight days after CID Investigator Grigoris Grigoriou said the suspect was under investigation for 42 counts of conspiracy, theft, forgery, obtaining money under false pretences, burglary and attempted burglary.
All cases were said to have been committed between July, 2004 and December 7 last year.
“On August 12, 2004 a butcher from Nicosia reported to CID that somebody calling himself ‘Pambos’ had ordered and picked up from his shop 200 chickens, worth £532, which he claimed were to be cooked for a wedding dinner,” the investigator told the court yesterday.
“The culprit told the butcher that he would pay him within the next few days but never showed up.”
The same con was played on a take-away restaurant two weeks later, after two men, posing as wedding planners, walked out of the shop with £1,218 worth of chickens.
It is believed that the suspect then conned a company out of £1,728 worth of coffee before proceeding to defraud companies and stores out of merchandise with the use of bouncing cheques.
Charalambous reportedly returned to his antics of ‘buy now, pay later’ by successfully conning a Larnaca businessman out of ten plasma television sets worth £9,415.
According to the businessman, the suspect had ordered the television sets posing as the manager of a popular hotel in Nicosia.
The suspect is also linked to several burglaries around the island with the biggest case being the break-in of a sports shop in Nicosia in which £7,354 worth of sports items were stolen.
In total, Charalambous is believed to have stolen around £35,163 worth of merchandise over two years.
The alleged whistle blower, Bekir Ahmet Abit, 60, was arrested on December 12 last year after confessing to charges of burglary and theft totalling £14,757 in various items and cash stolen over the past two years.
He was jailed for three years on February 5.
Yesterday, a Nicosia judge remanded Charalambous in custody for eight days in light of the investigations currently against him.
