Inside Ayia Napa’s seedy underbelly with rapes, beatings and gangland slayings in party town packed with Brit tourists
AYIA Napa hosts thousands of party loving Brits every year but the resort has been blighted by murder, rapes and organised crime.
Its seedy side was once again laid bare by the arrest of 12 young Israeli tourists in connection with the rape of a 19-year-old British holidaymaker.
Since the once sleepy fishing village became popular with Brits in the early 2000s, the authorities have been trying to clean it up.
The town’s mayor said he wanted it to become “the most cosmopolitan tourist resort of the Mediterranean” but the antics of tourists and criminals may make that hard.
SEX ATTACK HORROR
Just under 100,000 Brits visit the town in Cyprus every year and it has acquired a reputation for boozy debauchery.
Websites like Stagweekends.com boast that the island is “absolutely without shame” to people who want to book their holidays through them.
But as well as the fun, there has also been a number of disturbing sex attacks over the years.
A woman from Blackburn was left facing a permanent disability after being ruthlessly beaten and raped as she waited for a friend outside a nightclub.
She was found partly clothed, bruised and battered in a field after being sexually assaulted and beaten with a sharp wooden implement.
The attack came as the resort started to gain popularity among young Brits.
In 2012 British soldier, Sam Trussler, 25 was jailed for four years for raping a British university student in Ayia Napa.
Last year, an Irish holidaymaker was allegedly duped into following a man into a dark alley where he was then beaten up and gang raped.
The 20-year-old claimed he had been enjoying a night out in the resort when he was lured by his attacker by the promise of buying tickets for a late bar.
It’s not only young Brits involved in sex crimes in Ayia Napa.
In 2014, Patrik Ivarsson, 23, was jailed in 2015 for seven years raping a fellow Swedish tourist.
The Foreign Office urges women to be vigilant and warns of the possible use of “the possible use of ‘date rape’ and other drugs including ‘GHB’ and liquid ecstasy”.
VIOLENT REPUTATION
An early indication of the town’s violent reputation came when Dizzee Rascal was hospitalised after being stabbed in the party town in 2003.
The rapper was dragged from his scooter in broad daylight and subjected to a vicious knife attack before he was due to perform at the resort's Gas Club.
He was treated for wounds to the back, buttocks and chest but others have been less fortunate.
George Low, from Dartford, died after being stabbed outside a bar in the resort and though the estate agent dragged himself inside, he collapsed in a pool of blood and died in hospital.
An inquest held earlier this month heard the 22-year-old was on a bar crawl in the town when he was targeted.
George was stabbed in the neck and his friend, Ben Barker, also 22, suffered four stab wounds to his back in the attack.
Another victim of violence in the town was soldier David Collins, who was stabbed to death at a nightclub in the early hours.
The 18-year-old, from 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, had been due to fly to Afghanistan the day after he was killed.
Such is the town’s reputation that the army put it out of bounds for soldiers.
The move came after nine British soldiers were arrested and two others ended up in hospital after a bar-room brawl.
The two locals were seriously injured when up to 20 soldiers burst into a bar in the early hours and began throwing bottles and smashing tables and chairs.
Last year a holidaymaker from the UK was left critically ill with swelling in the brain after being beaten up by a gang of fellow Brits in Ayia Napa.
The 21-year-old victim is said to have been attacked by up to a dozen British tourists in the early hours of the morning.
MAFIA LINKS
Ayia Napa has also been linked to organised crime.
Police sergeant Elias Hadjiefthimiou, 46, and his wife Skevi, 39, were killed cold blood in front of their children.
Two gunmen approached the table in a packed restaurant where they were dining with 51-year-old businessman Phanos Kalopsidiotis.
Holidaymakers cowered in terror as the masked killers sprayed the three with bullets from a Kalashnikov and pistols.
The businessman’s three bodyguards, seated at a nearby table, fired back — killing one attacker as two others fled.
An Albanian hitmen, aged 41, died instantly at the scene from a bullet in the chest.
The kids aged 14 and 13 survived by diving under a table.
Kalopsidiotis was suspected of being heavily involved in drugs and five of his bodyguards were killed in Ayia Napa in 2012.
In 2014 his father Yiannos was murdered outside his home not far from Ayia Napa.
Two London gangs once reportedly fought each other with knuckledusters and knives for two hours on the streets of Ayia Napa.
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