Police confiscate ‘spy van’

Police early on Saturday confiscated a van with high-tech surveillance equipment after its owner boasted to media it could intercept communications within a one-kilometre radius.

The probe was launched after local media picked up an article by Forbes magazine this week published in August on a high-tech surveillance vehicle in Larnaca that can intercept WhatsApp messages, Facebook chats, calls and all the contents of a smartphone.

News of the existence of such a vehicle prompted main opposition Akel on Friday to enquire how and why such a vehicle was present in Cyprus and whether it had been inspected at customs.

Police on Friday went to check the van and its equipment, which is property of an Israeli ex-intelligence officer, who, the government said, operates in Cyprus through a registered company that has Cypriot shareholders.

The vehicle was confiscated and reportedly taken to the police headquarters.

The government said on Friday that some of the equipment advertised in the report is imported in Cyprus in accordance with the customs and consumption tax law but that police were investigating the case.

 

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.