How much russian money is in cyprus
Al Jazeera has obtained over 1, Cypriot passport applications, revealing they were sold to criminals and fugitives. Cyprus has made billions of dollars from passport sales. Who are the people that buy them, and why do they do it? By Al Jazeera Investigative Unit. Published On 25 Aug More from News. Russia demands closure of leading human rights group Memorial. Bank risks aside, unsupervised flows of illicit money into the EU system also posed hazards for European democracy, Browder said.
Russia has a track record of using such funds to finance anti-EU parties and election-meddling, he pointed out. Vekselberg, who owns 9. Cyprus and Russia's special relationship has long tentacles that also embrace family members of the Cypriot elite. Anastasiades' daughters, for instance, are shareholders in a Russian state chemicals firm called Bashkir Soda via an investment vehicle called Imperium Nominees.
In this professional capacity, and according to common practice, they may act as nominees on behalf of clients of their law firm who happen to have shares or any other interest in various firms," such as Bashkir Soda, it said.
The presidential family's Russian wealth may have nothing to do with Anastasiades' attitude toward Russian investors, but some of those investors do try to use personal ties to get their way. Then, once you've been compromised, they come with threats of blackmail and physical violence. It's standard operating procure.
A Russian oligarch would be unlikely to harm a Cypriot lawyer or politician, according to Mark Galeotti, a British writer on Russian organised crime. But the well-known links between the Kremlin, Russian intelligence, and the Russian mafia, lend Russia's business barons a frightening mystique, Galeotti, an academic at the European Universities Institute in Florence, Italy, said. The fact the "vory v zakone", a violent caste of Russian criminals, has also set up camp in Cyprus, where they operate real estate scams, and where they shot dead a man in broad daylight in the town of Limassol in February, magnifies the fear factor.
The extent to which Cypriot institutions bow to the Kremlin outside financial affairs is debatable. Its attorney general showed backbone by handing evidence on Manafort to the US and one of its courts recently granted an injunction which annoyed Putin. Anastasiades has not vetoed renewals of EU sanctions on Russia imposed over its invasion of Ukraine.
Cyprus has also broken EU ranks in an international criminal justice affair by facilitating Russia's efforts to go after Browder, Putin's gadfly. The last time Anastasiades met Putin, in Moscow in October , the Russian leader publicly told him at a Kremlin press conference that he wanted a "satisfactory" result on his request for "legal assistance" in the matter. What he wanted was for Cyprus to let Russian law enforcement officers come to Nicosia to raid Browder's law firm there and interrogate staff.
Other EU states and Interpol, the international police agency in Lyon, France, have, many times, denounced the case as a "politically motivated" smear campaign. It was meant to make Browder look like a criminal to stop his hunt for Russian money and his campaign for tougher EU and US sanctions, Browder said. Russian officials had already flown to Nicosia for the raid in , when they were turned back at the airport because Browder had obtained a Cypriot court injunction.
But almost one year after the Putin-Anastasiades meeting, Cypriot authorities have not given up on a "satisfactory" outcome.
Cyprus' justice minister, Ionas Nicolaou, "is currently thoroughly studying the decision of the court [Browder's injunction] Search the FT Search. World Show more World. US Show more US. Companies Show more Companies. Markets Show more Markets. Opinion Show more Opinion. It also may make it easier to move money, because banks see them as benign locals rather than potentially suspicious foreigners.
Some Russians further cultivate the I'm-a-local impression by hiring sham employees for the investment vehicles they set up on the island, making it look as if they have a physical presence there, according to an American accountant who lives in Limassol. She says she serves as an employee for dozens of such entities. The Russian who got his passport after buying two villas is now transferring his Dutch company to Cyprus to take advantage of a deal that came with his new citizenship: tax-exempt investment income for 17 years.
Normally, that wouldn't have been enough to avoid paying taxes to Russia, where President Vladimir Putin started taxing offshore profits and wealth in But because he claims tax residency in Cyprus, local authorities don't have to report his investment earnings to Moscow.
Did that mean this rich Russian had actually moved to Cyprus? Not exactly, he smiled. EU citizens simply flash their passports on arrival and departure, waved through without a stamp.
Nobody really knows when he's there or for how long. At the Finance Ministry in Nicosia, the passport program and tax breaks are seen as a success, helping pull Cyprus from a three-year recession. The economy expanded 1. Real estate purchases by passport seekers have put a floor under property prices, which normally would have cratered as banks cleaned up crisis-era mortgages through foreclosures.
The number of Russian tourists is up 65 per cent since before the crisis, government statistics show, helping hotels, restaurants and retail stores.