A 29-year-old man from Larnaca was remanded on Tuesday for four days in connection with the circulation of three fake €100 bills.
He was arrested on Monday following a report that a man had paid for a bouquet of flowers from a florist in Larnaca with a fake €100 bill. According to the report, the shop owner gave the man change and after he left she realised the bill was fake so alerted the police.
Following investigations, officers located the 29-year-old’s car, from which they saw him and another man exit. They arrested the 29-year-old but the other man managed to flee.
During a search of the car, officers located a wallet with a €200 bill that appeared to be fake. The suspect claimed the wallet belonged to the other man.
But the suspect appears to be involved in other similar reported cases that took place between May 5 and 22, where business owners received fake €100 bills for the purchase of goods.
On May 13, a Larnaca food delivery man reported that he had delivered food to an apartment where he was given a €100 bill by two women, and gave them change. When he took the money to the restaurant he works for, it emerged that the bill was fake.
Police arrested the two women, both aged 20, one of whom admitted to have been given the fake €100 bill by a 42-year-old man, and that she gave the change she had received from the delivery man to the 29-year-old, who gave her €10 for her service.
The 42-year-old was arrested last week and was remanded for four days in custody.
He told police that the 29-year-old had bought drugs from him with the fake €100 bill and that despite realising it was not genuine he kept it as he was facing financial problems and gave it to one of the two 20-year-old women to pay for the food they had ordered.
A Larnaca kiosk owner reported, also on May 13, that two men purchased a number of items and paid her with a €100 bill from which she gave them change. She later realised the bill was fake. Two days later, the same men went to the same shop and tried again to pay with a €100 bill but the woman began shouting and they fled.
Police said that between April 18 and May 18, three fake €100 bills and a €10 bill had been circulated in Larnaca. The bills in question don’t have a serial number and they bear phrases written in Russian.
