Filenews 17 January 2023
Linking assets of Russian oligarchs, who were subject to international sanctions after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with Cyprus, he claimed to have been spotted by the "60 minutes" show of the US network CBS. In the same broadcast, the Minister of Finance said that he could not give details of whether these assets have been frozen, as provided for by the sanctions, citing the European regulation on the protection of personal data.
According to material posted on the CBS network's website, when asked by Konstantinos Petrides whether Cyprus is the weak link in the imposition of sanctions, the Minister replied that he disagrees with this. Responding to a question about the people who were sanctioned, the Minister said that about 10 people were under restrictive measures and the Council of Ministers has started a process to revoke their passports. He did not give their names when asked, while when asked by request the names of people who were sanctioned and the assets that Cyprus froze or froze, Mr. Petrides, through an e-mail that lasted three months, said that no list can be published, due to European data protection regulations.
However, the show claimed that other EU countries have published detailed lists of their actions.
Mistakes have been made
When asked by the journalist if it is expected that everyone should just trust the Cypriot government that it is implementing the sanctions it should against the Russians, the Minister of Finance said that the Cypriot government does not need someone to trust it. "We have mutual evaluation reports for Cyprus in 2019 that show all the progress made in recent years. I think we have proven as Cyprus that we are a reliable member of the EU. We admit that mistakes have been made in the past. But Cyprus has also been unjustly stigmatized."
According to the network, Mr. Petrides also said that the passports of the sanctioned oligarchs are in a "process" of revocation and said that Cyprus has confiscated €105 million of Russian deposits. The network described the amount as "large, but only a fraction of the estimated €5.6 billion of the Russian deposits made in Cyprus last year."
Subsequently, the network asked the Minister about dozens of properties and active shell companies in Cyprus that the show claimed could link to Russians who were sanctioned. The Minister said that any Cypriot company linked to an oligarch under EU sanctions has been placed under "increased control".
Roman Abramovich
However, the show notes that often, Russian oligarchs do not mention their names anywhere in their assets. As an example, he brought Roman Abramovich and his planes. According to researchers in the US, the planes were hidden under five shell businesses, with addresses in the British Virgin Islands and the British island of Jersey, all linked to an anonymous investment fund in Cyprus. However, it was not the Cypriot authorities who eventually seized the planes, but the prosecutors of the US Department of Justice.
US Assistant Attorney General Lisa Monaco, in charge of identifying assets hidden around the world by sanctioned oligarchs, said "dirty" money does not stay in Cyprus for long. It is typically "laundered" and invested in other, Western economies, he claimed. Investigators say this is one way Oleg Deripaska managed to escape the sanctions.
The U.S. government is analyzing how, while the war in Ukraine was intensifying, Deripaska used a "Cypriot" company to arrange a "private jet trip from Russia to Los Angeles" for his pregnant partner, moving money to rent a house for her in Beverly Hills. However, when she landed in Los Angeles in the summer the US authorities stopped her.
The show notes that he has found a villa in a beachfront complex, offices in this building, and over ten "active" shell businesses, affiliated with Oleg Deripaska. The Cypriot government, according to the show, does not say whether it has frozen these assets.
"Golden passport"
According to the show, dozens of Russians who were sanctioned after Russia's invasion of Ukraine had received a "golden passport." Among them, he says are Igor Kesaev, who owns a Russian arms factory, billionaire Alexander Ponomarenko, President of the board of Russia's largest airport, and aluminum mogul Oleg Deripaska, who belongs to Putin's inner circle and, according to the US Treasury, is being investigated internationally for money laundering, illegal surveillance and extortion, accusations which he denies.
The show noted that from 2013 to 2020 Cyprus issued almost 7,000 "golden passports", of which almost half were to Russians.
Alexandra Attalidou, MP of the Green Movement-Citizens' Cooperation, also spoke on the show, explaining to CBS how the investment program worked, saying that any foreigner invested more than €2 million. in the country, usually buying real estate, he could get a Cypriot passport, which he described as "valuable", because Cyprus is in the EU.
In addition, Myra Martini, an analyst at Transparency International, an NGO that monitors money laundering internationally, told CBS that Cyprus has historically built an economic system to attract wealth from abroad. He claimed that Cyprus offers the secrecy and security that criminals and corrupt individuals usually look for, as for many years not much information was required to open a bank account or register a company on the island.
Ms Martini said a Cypriot passport would make it easier for sanctioned oligarchs to buy property and move assets and that the friendly relationship between wealthy Russians and Cyprus "is of concern internationally".
When asked by CBS reporter Sarin Alfonsi if Cyprus is the weak link when it comes to sanctions, Ms. Martini replied that she thinks Cyprus is one of the weakest links.
The President of the Democratic Party, Nikolas Papadopoulos, in a post on Twitter, accused the Minister of Finance of a "cover-up" in relation to his response to the show. Mr. Petridis replied in the same way, that "if the application of the legislation you voted for on the protection of personal data is a cover-up, I invite you to amend it. It is on the basis of this law that the ECJ recently ruled that public personal records are contrary to the acquis!"
