Special unit set up to battle electronic crime

A SPECIAL police unit will be set up next month in order to try and combat an increase in electronic crime on the island.
The unit will be based at police headquarters in Nicosia, with two senior officers who have received specialist training from the FBI in the United States, specifically in anti-child pornography and electronic fraud measures.
Police Chief Iacovos Papacostas was quoted as saying: “The unit will be equipped with the latest state-of-the-art equipment and will deal in cases including the distribution and possession of child pornography and credit card fraud.”
A police press office spokesman yesterday told the Mail that, “electronic crime is a new type of crime that we are encountering. It is happening all over the world and Cyprus is no exception.”

He added: “We will do our best to clampdown on the phenomenon and we are ready.”
According to the spokesman, the police have seen a recent increase in child pornography cases as well as credit card fraud.

“Several people have complained of paying for household goods or cars over the internet and then not receiving what they ordered,” he explained. Only this weekend, a man told police he had paid £3,300 sterling for a car over the internet. The vehicle was never delivered, and the people with whom he had negotiated the deal stopped answering his emails.

The unit’s budget was not disclosed.

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.