‘Turmoil’ in Cyprus as government cracks down on Russia sanctions busters 

Cyprus said it is cracking down on entities accused by the United States and United Kingdom of helping Russian oligarchs get around sanctions, as President Nikos Christodoulides went into a high-level meeting, saying more designations are expected.

The official Cyprus News Agency reported, 25 April, that Christodoulides would go into a meeting with the ministers of finance and justice, the attorney general, the head of the intelligence service and other financial and legal officials to discuss ‘the issue of sanctions imposed by the US and the UK on individuals and legal entities in Cyprus.’

Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported that the Mediterranean island, dubbed ‘Moscow on the Med’ for its large population of Russian residents, was ‘in turmoil’ after the US and UK announced sanctions on 13 Cypriot entities and individuals accused of working with the financial networks of Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov, both close allies of Vladimir Putin.

The Bank of Cyprus, the island’s largest bank, said some 10,000 accounts belonging to 4,000 Russian depositors would be shut down, and that the affected account holders had been informed.

‘We will not allow anyone to think that they can violate sanctions, cause problems and use our country’s name and continue with this type of behaviour,’ Christodoulides said, 23 April.

The island has long had a reputation as a haven for dirty money, especially from Russia, with newspaper reports saying that prices of luxury real estate have shot up in recent months.

A large part of the Cypriot economy has depended for decades on Russian tourists, investors and oligarchs.

Christodoulides said British and American authorities have yet to provide information on the new Russia-related sanctions involving Cypriots. ‘We are expecting it at any moment,’ he said, according to the island’s Financial Mirror newspaper.

In January, the government said it had stripped 222 wealthy investors and their family members of citizenship, part of an effort to clean up the island’s sullied image following a scandal revealing hundreds of instances where EU passports issued by Cyprus had been unlawfully granted in exchange for payments and bribes.