Police looking for currency exchange scammers

Police are searching for two men who are suspected of having tricked a 36-year-old into exchanging €8,800 for $600, the police announced on Monday.

The 36-year-old, a Nicosia resident, reported to the police on Monday that on November 1, two unknown persons told him they would like to exchange $11,000 into euros.

According to the police, the two men handed over $11,000 to the 36-year-old, who counted it before handing the money back to the two men so that they could place it in an envelope.

The men handed the sealed envelope to the 36-year-old, who then gave them the exchanged amount of €8,800.

When the men left, 36-year-old told the police, he opened the envelope to find only $600.

Police believe that the two men are the same persons suspected of stealing €8,140 from an exchange bureau in Paphos on 2 November.

They are described as being between 50 and 60-years-old and between 1.70 and 1.75 metres tall.  One of the men has white hair and the other black, police said in an appeal to the public.

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.