Have police nabbed copycat ‘sword robber’ or the real thing?

POLICE yesterday arrested a man they suspect of either being the notorious ‘sword robber’ or a copycat who may have carried out a robbery at a Limassol bakery on Tuesday night,

Police said they had arrested a 24-year-old just before 6pm yesterday in connection with Tuesday’s robbery, and to see to “what degree the incident was connected with the infamous sword robber’.

According to police reports during the robber on Tuesday, a hooded man entered the bakery on Limassol’s Nikos Pattichis Street, wielding a sword and emptied the till. It is not known how much was inside.

The thief is described as medium build and around 1.80m in height, which is similar to that of the ‘sword robber’ who has carried out seven hold ups at bakeries and kiosks in the past week, making off with a total of €2,995

Police spokesman Michalis Katsounotos said the force believe the man was a copycat because his modus operandi was different from the original but he declined to be specific.

Also in the early hours of yesterday, an attempted robbery took place at another bakery on Limassol’s Franklin Roosevelt Street. Whilst the hooded thief tried to take money from the till, an employee noticed what was going on and shouted at him to stop, at which point he pulled out a 30cm knife. However, the employee’s husband happened to pull up outside the bakery at that moment, causing the thief to run off empty handed.

Katsounotos said the two robberies were not connected.

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.