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| CM File photo: Ayios Dhometios checkpoint |
The Cyprus Mail reports that a 61 year old man [there’s the age obsession again, but at least they didn’t call him elderly] was fined after attempting to smuggle 143 kilograms of red meat, a combination of lamb and beef, from the Republic into the North.
They note that “meat prices in the north are considerably higher than in the Republic, leading Turkish Cypriot consumers to buy meat products south of the Green Line and, occasionally, illegally take it back to the north.”
They’re right about the price of beef - exorbitant - and lamb scarcely appears in supermarkets here any more. Chicken, though, is reasonable, and much nicer than we’ve bought commercially at home for years. And fortunately we don’t eat much red meat. Cypriot lamb, though, never cheap but always very good.
Cypriots from the South do cross the border to save money in the North as well, particularly on petrol and, I suspect cigarettes and some liquor. We’ve never had the border guards do more than a cursory check - but then we’ve never tried to smuggle either. And recent fines have been for quantities clearly not intended for personal use.