Serious crimes increased by 30%

The Cypriot police do well in solving serious criminal offenses, such as murder, rape and drug trafficking cases. The situation is worse in the investigation of burglaries and arson. This is the conclusion drawn from the report of the Ministry of Justice, which the agency sent to Parliament.

Serious Crimes: Disclosure rate – almost 80%

From January to the end of August 2022 there were 3491 serious crimes in Cyprus. The detection rate was 79.7%. By comparison, during the same period of 2021, 2,701 serious offences were recorded and the clear-up rate was 77.2%. As compared to 2021, there was a 29.25% increase in the number of serious offenses.

The lowest percentage of solved crimes was in cases of destruction of property with explosives, arson, theft and burglary.

Online casinos, intellectual property, match-fixing

In recent years, police have stepped up efforts to crack down on illegal casinos and betting shops. Between January 1 and September 16, 2022, 128 inspections of businesses were initiated and 25 complaints were filed about illegal gambling on the Internet.

During the same period, the specialized police department investigated three cases involving match-fixing. In cooperation with the Customs Department, 34 searches were conducted in gambling establishments throughout the country. A total of 7,518 copyright infringing products were identified and seized.

During that period, the police, in cooperation with the Pharmaceutical Service, conducted inspections at various establishments, where a total of 642 packages of medicines that were not authorized for sale in the country were found and seized. A total of 810 capsules containing nitrous oxide (“laughing gas”) were also seized.

Drug trafficking: 727 episodes. 772 people were involved.

The number of drug trafficking cases this year reached 727 involving 772 people (in 2021 there were 577 cases involving 641 people).

54 victims of sexual harassment online

From January 1 to June 30, 2022, a total of 205 cases were investigated. Including: 125 episodes of distribution and possession of child pornography, 11 cases of identity theft, 24 attempted account tampering, three cases of racist comments and 42 other violations. Twenty people were arrested.

During the same period, 54 underage victims of online sexual harassment were identified and four cases of online suicide were prevented.

Domestic violence is on the rise

Criminal cases of domestic violence in the past five years:
2018 – 549 cases,
2019 – 565 cases,
2020 – 480 cases,
2021 – 819 cases,
2022 – 496 cases (as of the end of August).

Crimes against minors, too.

While 86 complaints were investigated in 2021, 88 cases were reported from the beginning of this year through the end of September.

117 Missing

There were 117 people reported missing as of October 8, 2022.

Human trafficking: 89 victims for 2022

From January 1 to September 26, 2022, the Office of Human Trafficking investigated eight cases involving 10 people so far. During the same period, a total of 89 people were considered as possible victims and 15 people were designated as trafficking victims.