Limassol bank robbers make off with €30,000

TWO YOUNG men speaking fluent Greek robbed a branch of the Bank of Cyprus in Limassol at gunpoint yesterday making off with around €30,000.

The two entered the bank, on Apostolos Varnavas street in the Ayiou Ioanni area of downtown Limassol, brandishing pistols in the air.  They shouted: “Robbery…nobody move.  Money,” and then threw two bags onto the counter.

“The two cashiers, frightened, obeyed whatever the two robbers told them, and put in the bags a portion of the amount of money which they had in their cash registers,” said Yiannakis Georgiou of the Limassol CID. They did not hand it all over to the thieves.

“There are some ‘tricks’ which bank personnel have to guard against instances of robbery,” said Vasso Kourou, spokesperson for the Bank of Cyprus.  She added that one of these was to empty the cash registers of most of the money they contained every 2-3 hours.

According to Limassol CID, there were three customers in the bank at the time, none of whom were injured.

The thieves were wearing jeans, baseball caps and dark sunglasses.  After the money was put in the bags they simply walked out of the bank.

Police patrol cars, and a police helicopter began searching for the pair but had no luck. Georgiou said most probably they had a car parked nearby.

The bank’s CCTV system caught images, which have been distributed to police to assist them in their search.

“This whole thing with the economy is the underlying cause.  In Greece, they had five robberies yesterday,” said Kourou.  She suggested that the marked increase in bank robberies over recent years be examined from a more macroeconomic and sociological standpoint.

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.