Do you remember the terrifying Romanian child-snatchers of Cyprus? In June this year the British tabloids and their websites were full of reports that a gang of Romanian traffickers were stalking the Anastasia Beach Hotel (a large holiday resort on the island of Cyprus) and attempting to snatch tourists’ children.
But now, almost three months on from the furore, many of the news reports are quietly being removed from the internet, raising serious questions over whether any elements of the story were true at all.
The initial news bulletins on 18 June carried reports that dozens of holidaymakers had been moved to different hotels by travel agency Thomas Cook following an incident involving the gang two days earlier. The number of people involved in the gang varied – this report in The Express claimed there were as many as 10.
It seems the first sighting of the traffickers was in a story in the Scottish Daily Record that has now been deleted from the paper’s website. The original can be found here. It begins: “A gang dressed as waiters tried to snatch children from a hotel packed with Scots holidaymakers. Three youngsters were being lured into cars when the child-snatchers were caught.”
There was more detail when the story was followed up by the newspaper’s national stablemate The Mirror in another article that has subsequently been deleted (an archived version is available here). Eyewitnesses in the stories described a “Romanian couple leading … two children towards a waiting car" as "another person had a third child up against a wall ready to go” and said a crowd of angry tourists had grabbed a man and pulled him into the lobby.
An eyewitness's appearance on television was reported by The Mirror in another story that has been deleted from its website (an archived version is available here). The paper also deleted a story that appeared on 19 June in which one of its reporters “strolled freely” through the resort after the scare to show that security had not been improved, despite the fact that tourists had recently “foiled a child kidnap bid” (archived version here). According to the International Business Times, the way local police dealt with the situation led to angry claims from British tourists of a “cover up”.
Also deleted, but archived here, was the story of a father from County Durham whose daughter was apparently snatched on holiday from the Anastasia Beach Hotel by an eastern European lady a year earlier. The tale was disputed by the hotel’s manager, Giannos Michaelides, in the Cyprus Mail.
And another Mirror story, in which a family described how they had missed their holiday due to the trauma their son suffered after watching a TV report about the incident, was also deleted (archived version here).
These stories are at odds with a statement issued by the High Commission of the Republic of Cyprus on 19 June. It stated that, contrary to reports of fake waiters or a mysterious couple, police in fact “responded rapidly to complaints made by British nationals that an unknown man was taking pictures and approaching children at the hotel grounds”. It described how this individual, “a 19-year-old foreign national, was taken into custody for questioning”, and said he had “been living in Cyprus with his parents for the past few years and has no police record”.
“His mobile phone, personal computer and home were thoroughly searched by the Police and nothing incriminating or suspicious was found,” the commission said.
The statement went on:
The Police also took statements from the British parents who filed the complaint, as well as from the children themselves. Their statements did not corroborate the allegations concerning a possible abduction plan on the part of the said foreign national. All allegations were duly examined and no evidence was found to support them.The various press reports in the UK alleging a planned abduction of children from the hotel by a group of foreign nationals are, therefore, unsubstantiated.
The Daily Mail managed to obtain footage of a man fleeing an angry mob of British tourists through a window. It appears the suspect may have been punched as he was being apprehended by the tourists: A police spokesperson told a local paper the man was “practically lynched”.
BuzzFeed News has attempted to reach out to eyewitnesses quoted in the news stories, to the hotel, and to the Mirror – all have declined to comment. However, a source close to the situation who asked not to be named told us that the 19-year-old was employed by the hotel and had been “playing with the children and hanging around the bar”, and that he sparked the panic because he was taking photos of a wedding that was taking place there. “The parents saw him and thought he was taking pictures of their kids,” the source said.
The 19-year-old was not, contrary to press reports, Romanian, the source said, but Bulgarian in origin. “But Romanian fits the stereotype of the Roma-stealing-kids-in-the-middle-of-the-night,” the source said, adding: “You have to realise that after the Madeleine [McCann] case people are really jumpy over these things.”