Britons on holiday may have been duped into taking part in mass orgies on a cruise ship by being served cocktails spiked with pure alcohol, authorities on Cyprus suggest. Witness accounts of the ferry operating out of the Ayia Napa resort have also revealed the widespread use of ecstasy. The night voyages were sold as a "pleasant mini-cruise". British touts in the "anything goes" resort are thought to have taken the lead in rounding up clients at £30 a head.
Cypriots were scandalised this week when the private Mega TV channel exposed the sex cruises. Shots of nude passengers either having sex or sitting on deck half-dressed watching others having sex were broadcast on the news. "It is clear from the pictures that mass sexual orgies were happening on board," Kostas Kostaras, an officer of the Cypriot merchant marine department, told the Guardian yesterday. "We'll study them very closely. If they took place on the boat in question, tough measures will obviously be taken." Arrests, he said, could be made in the coming days.
The Cyprus government depends on tourism, not least from Britain which has now tripled. "That this has come as a shock is not surprising, we're not used to this," Giorgos Lalikas, the tourism minister, told Mega TV. "Irrespective of what else happened aboard the ship, we have information drugs were circulated. We will take every measure to track down this ring. Such acts blight the good image of Cyprus, and are totally unacceptable." |