Man arrested for possessing antique cannons

A 36-year-old Limassol man was arrested during a drugs raid after police found something entirely different in his possession — two 18th-century cannons.

The suspect was detained for possessing antiquities without a license.

The drug squad on Monday acted on a tip-off that the 36-year-old had been dealing in drugs and secured a search warrant from a Limassol court.

But when police officers went to the suspect’s residence to search for drugs, they stumbled across him and three others digging up the cannons from the garden.

The men were using an excavator to unearth the weathered cannon.

Called to the scene, the Antiquities Department told police the two cannons were typically found on shipwrecks of the 18^th century and would have been part of a maritime vessel’s armaments.

These cannons fall under the Antiquities Law, and their extraction and/or possession without permission is prohibited.