Scotland Yard probes luxury car scam

A TEAM of Scotland Yard officers yesterday arrived on the island to investigate a scam involving stolen luxury cars, police said.

According to reports the scam involves double registering the chassis number of cars imported to Cyprus from the UK.

Specifically 245 luxury vehicles are involved whose chassis numbers have been used to register stolen vehicles in the UK and which are exactly of the same brands and models as the cars sold in Cyprus. The purpose of the scam was to dupe UK authorities regarding the stolen vehicles as they were already registered here.

Police have already confirmed 80 of the 245 cars have been registered in Cyprus. “The owners of the cars in Cyprus do not have to be concerned for the time being because we are still at the first stage of the investigation,” Police Chief Iacovos Papacostas said.

He said all the owners would be called to give a statement regarding how they had purchased the vehicles and what procedures they had followed, with the first interviews already underway yesterday.

“Every individual case will be looked at very carefully,” Papacostas said.

He said any findings would be referred to the Attorney-general who would have the last say on whether any further action was necessary, including confiscating cars.

So far no Cypriots have been found to be involved in the scam, the police chief added.

The investigation is expected to conclude in 15 days. It is still not yet known if any of the cars in Cyprus are stolen.

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.