LIMASSOL police have busted a gang of criminals who have stolen dozens of cars around the country with the aim of dismantling them and smuggling the parts abroad.
Police said yesterday they had arrested four men, two of them from Bangladesh, one from Jordan and the other a Palestinian.
The suspects will be taken before a Limassol District Court this morning for a remand hearing. They are suspected of having stolen the cars with the intent to strip them for their parts and then ship them out of Cyprus in a container.
The arrests were made after a police raid just north of the Limassol village of Fasoulla, where the men had their hideaway.
At the scene, the police discovered dismantled pick-up trucks, 1,000 car parts as well as a large container, which police believe the suspects planned to fill with stolen car parts.
In the last few months, police have been puzzled by the large increase in the number of stolen cars, most of which were pick-up trucks.
Deputy Police Chief Andreas Paphitis said yesterday that police were aware of a total of 36 cars stolen nationwide and linked to the ring.
“Police had recently been looking into a puzzling series of car thefts across the country, and especially pick-up trucks. Yesterday, Limassol police found in an open area near Limassol a vast amount of dismantled vehicles.”
Describing the arrests, Paphitis said: “The area was staked out and this morning four people were arrested who drove out there in stolen vehicles and began dismantling them. A fifth man is also currently wanted for questioning. We are at an early stage and our investigations are continuing…We are also looking into the possibility that there may be other similar hideouts like the one we found.”
Paphitis did not rule out the possibility that some of the cars may have ended up in the north.
“We haven’t ruled out the possibility of the some of the stolen cars ending up in the occupied areas because a lot of cars were stolen. More than 25 cars were found at the area in Limassol but the total amount of cars stolen in the last few months is much, much more.”
He added: “The most likely possibility that we are looking into is the fact that the parts were being shipped with the container out of Cyprus. That is because it would have been impossible for them to sell so many of those car parts on the local market and not get caught.”
The deputy police chief said it was unlikely that the suspects had already managed to ship out car parts.
“Although we are still at an early stage, we believe that they didn’t manage to send the car parts out of the island in time…We believe that the most likely locations for the stolen parts would have been countries in the region.”
