WORLD NEWS | Cyprus protests describe it as a safe haven for Russian money

NICOSIA, Jan. 19 (AP) Cyprus has frozen about 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) in deposits and assets linked to Russia under European Union sanctions over the Ukraine war, Cyprus’ finance minister said Thursday.

Constantinos Petrides also told a news conference that Russian deposits in Cyprus banks had fallen from a staggering 40 percent of the total before the 2013 financial crisis – when big savers were forced to cut their deposits based on so-called “bails”. In “trading” – up to 3.8%.

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He was responding this week on CBS’ 60 Minutes to a report suggesting that Cyprus still has a large number of shell companies hiding assets of sanctioned Russians, and that Cyprus has frozen only a fraction of the total.

“We don’t live in an unregulated environment, especially in an EU member state with such a sinful past,” Peter Riedes said. He was referring to lax banking and financial services regulation, which has been criticized for making Cyprus a haven for money laundering.

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Petrides added that after three years of rigorous monitoring by the IMF and European creditors as part of a multibillion-euro rescue package following the 2013 crisis, many problems had been “corrected”.

The minister said Russians had less than 1 billion euros ($1.08 billion) in deposits in Cypriot banks, about a fifth of what he said television reports said Russians deposited last year.

Under EU sanctions imposed since Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Cypriot authorities froze 105 million euros in bank deposits linked to Russia, 720 million euros in funds managed by Cyprus-registered investment companies and 719 million euros held by the executive branch, Petrides said. asset. Serve.

He also said that increased scrutiny of money laundering in recent years had made it more difficult to open bank accounts in Cyprus and had led to the closure of 80,000 bank accounts, while thousands more were blocked from opening.

Petrides said it cannot release the names of sanctioned individuals. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)