Filenews 10 August 2021
Present in Cyprus were the complex corporate structures allegedly set up by Christopher Samuelson, the person who "stars" in the new report of the news network Al Jazeera, published yesterday, which reveals how football, in this case English, is used for money laundering, again implicating Cyprus and the already abolished Cyprus Investment Programme (JEP).
Mutual Trust Management Ltd, of which Samuelson was reportedly chairman and shareholder, was a shareholder of other companies registered, including Cyprus, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Bermuda.
On the website of the Registrar of Companies, this company appears under the name Woodbrook Corporate Services Ltd, registered on 18 July 1996 and in liquidation by court order, from 30 March 2021.
Michael Doherty, Christina Doherty and Senan Mc Gnigle appear as directors.
Al Jazeera's new report entitled "The men who sell football" is presented by the Network as the pre-release of "The Cyprus Papers Undercover", published in October last year, concerning the JEP.
This time, network journalists are presented as representatives of a non-existent, wealthy Chinese man who has been convicted, among other things, of money laundering, and are in contact with an intermediary named Christopher Samuelson, who, according to the report, brings them one step ahead of the purchase of English football club Derby County. Samuelson, according to Al Jazeera, has been investigated several times in the past by police authorities in many European countries and the US for money laundering, but has not been charged.
According to the report, Samuelson, along with his partner, former Scotland Yard member Keith Hunter, tell the two covered journalists that they can help them obtain a Cypriot passport for the Chinese investor in order to deceive the English football authorities, saying that this has been done many times in the past with Indian people, Ukrainian, Russian and Nigerian origin and that the whole process is conducted unhindered ("the process is seamless").
In both the video and the last of the three audio documents accompanying the article, Samuelson introduces Hunter to the two journalists, as the man who can bring them into contact with high-ranking figures in Cyprus, who can secure a Cypriot passport for the Chinese investor.
"We've done it many, many times with people who, I can assure you, were worse off than your boss," they tell reporters under cover.
Reference is made to the case of a Russian businessman, for whom Interpol had issued a "red alert" and who obtained a Cypriot passport with the help of a Minister of the Government of Cyprus, who allegedly travelled to the Consulate General of the Republic of Cyprus in London for this purpose.
"The Minister who will help us has come from Cyprus. We're going to have a conversation about what's the best way to do it," Keith Hunter appears to tell the two reporters.
The report refers to Cyprus as one of the few EU countries selling "golden passports" for investments, and more specifically, that under the JEP one could obtain a Cypriot passport and access to Europe with investments of 3 million dollars. It is noted in the report that people who have been convicted or prosecuted are excluded from the program.
Then the events unfold as we saw in the first report of the Network "The Cyprus papers undercover", where the two journalists under cover travel to Cyprus and meet with, among others, a then Member of Parliament, a well-known lawyer and a high-ranking state official, who allegedly, through the report, allegedly expressed their willingness to help the Chinese investor obtain a Cypriot passport, changing its name for an investment of €10 million.
