Everything is changing these days, and crime is changing with it. Criminals, one could argue, are keeping up with the times. More’s the pity.
They are exploiting new technology to the full, the internet above all. A special police report prepared for the Ministry of Justice and Public Order, which has been made public and which this newspaper covered at length, makes it plain that crime now takes hybrid forms, spans several types of offence at once and uses technology to do it.
The rise in online crime, such as fraud and sexual offences, bears this out, and the report’s figures show the scale of the problem. Serious cases rose up to June 2026 while the detection rate fell, which points to a shift towards serious crime that is more complex, more reliant on technology and more interconnected.
The figures are clear. Serious crime cases recorded up to June rose from 454 in 2025 to 580 in 2026, an increase of 126 cases, or 27.8 per cent. The number of cases solved also went up, from 387 to 455, but the overall detection rate fell from 85.2 per cent to 78.4 per cent.
This new reality is forcing the police to rethink how they tackle crime. As the report notes, the strategic priority should not simply be to solve more cases. It should be a shift to intelligence-led policing, with the emphasis on trend analysis, criminal networks, digital footprints, financial flows, international cooperation and prevention.
Clearly, these new forms of serious crime make life harder for law enforcement. Policing is no longer an easy job, and not just in Cyprus. This is not something unique to Cypriot society. It is a global phenomenon.
The report’s own figures confirm just how hard the job has become, showing, as we have already noted, a fall in the detection rate. That means the way crimes are solved has to change.
We often hear that law enforcement must stay one step ahead of the criminals. That means upgrading its technology and beefing up its capabilities on the ground. This is not optional. Fighting crime with old tools is a luxury nobody can afford.+
