A total of 278 people attempted to depart the Mediterranean island using fake travel documents over the past eight months, Philenews reported on Monday citing official data.
Most of them are African nationals who crossed to the EU-member state’s internationally recognised areas through the breakaway part held by Turkey since a 1974 invasion.
Police spokesman Christos Andreou also told Philenews that 144 of the 278 recorded arrests took place at Larnaca airport and 134 at Paphos airport.
The arrested people were attempting to travel illegally to central European countries.
Most of them were holding genuine passports or identity cards of European countries, however, they belonged to other people.
In most cases, the photo of the travel document they had submitted at passport control showed another person. And most of the arrested ones were asylum seekers from sub-Saharan African countries such as Congo and Nigeria.