Prostitution remand in Larnaca

LARNACA district court on Monday remanded a 46-year-old Cypriot man and a 26-year-old Romanian woman for six days in connection with a case of prostitution and sexual exploitation.

The case was uncovered when an 18-year-old Romanian woman ran away with a young man from Limassol.

She gave a statement to police that she had been working in a bar near Larnaca port owned by the two suspects and that she had been forced to sleep with customers for money.

The 18-year-old’s boyfriend also reported to Larnaca police that he had received a number of threats from the bar owners because he had run away with her. Officers from Larnaca CID went to the bar and found four other foreign women who were working there.

Officers specialising in sexual exploitation questioned the women, one of whom gave a written statement that the bar owners were allegedly prostituting the women for €120 a night.

This had allegedly been taking place since November.

The two suspects were arrested by police on Sunday and remanded for six days on Monday by Larnaca district court.

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.