Tax inspector held for bribery

A GOVERNMENT tax inspector was remanded in custody yesterday morning on suspicion of accepting bribes to “fix” a shoe salesman’s tax returns.

Theophanis Constantinou had been arrested at about 6.20pm on Tuesday after plain-clothes CID officers allegedly caught him red-handed accepting a £5, 000 bribe from the owner of a shoe shop in the Acropolis suburb of Nicosia.

Thirty-six-year-old Constantinou, from the Makedonitissa suburb of Nicosia, was brought up before Nicosia District court and remanded in custody for eight days on suspicion of bribery.

The court heard that CID officers saw the suspect receiving a brown paper envelope from the shoe shop owner. The envelope was later found to contain £5,000 in cash, the court heard.

The court heard that police had information that Constantinou had agreed to arrange it so that the shop owner would have to pay only a quarter of the £40,000 he owed in unpaid tax for 1994.

Later in the day, a colleague of the suspect’s was arrested in connection with the same case.

Police said Georgios Patikkis, from Lakatamia outside Nicosia, had been arrested at 2.40pm.

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