Man remanded after threatening to kill two unless they paid protection

A man who told the court he was the leader of a “mafia gang” in Poland was remanded in police custody on Sunday for five days after reportedly asking two people from Oroklini for 20,000 euro for ‘protection’.

Dawid Mokrzanowski, 31, was remanded by Larnaca District Court to help police with enquiries into a case of threats of violence and taking property under violence.

Larnaca CID officer Athanasios Athanasiou told the court that that the suspect threatened the owner of a restaurant and his father saying he would kill them if they did not hand over the money.

The suspect is connected to the restaurant and had recently brought four people to the island to work, in Oroklini, Ayia Napa and Larnaca.

On Friday night the restaurant owner and the suspect went out together for dinner and when they got back to the Pole’s home, in front of a woman the suspect reportedly told the restaurant owner in English he had not come to Cyprus to do this sort of work [brining people from overseas to work here].

He said where he came from he was in charge of a faction who “killed people” and that he had come to Cyprus to “sell protection”.

The owner tried to calm him down and when he failed went to his father’s house from where he called the suspect who again threatened again that he would kill him and his father and asked for the money.

After his arrest, an amount of cannabis was found in Mokrzanowski’s possession.

Police said they aim to take 12 statements and ask for information about the suspect from Europol and the Polish police.

When he was aksed by the judge if he had anything to say, Mokrzanowski said he did not agree with all of what the police officer had said.