Cyprus Finance Minister Refutes Money Laundering Allegations

Lorys Charambolous, Tax-news.com, Cyprus

23 March 2001

Cyprus' Finance Minister Takis Clerides took the opportunity whilst visiting Washington to berate a report published in the Washington Post, which implicated Cyprus in money laundering activities. Mr Clerides presented a series of documents as evidence of Cyprus' efforts in preventing money laundering in the jurisdiction.

Clerides told the media that the documents were taken from reports by international organisations such as the Council of Europe, FATF and IMF. All concluded on a positive note and declared that Cyprus met their international standards against money laundering and financial crimes. He said that a further IMF report was due to be published soon and he pointed out that recent US reports had cleared Cyprus of being party to any money laundering activities.

Cyprus has been in the news a great deal recently regarding allegations by the governor of the Yugoslav Central Bank, Mladjen Dinkic, who claimed that former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic had used Cyprus as a transit point for money totalling US$4bn. Clerides said the Cyprus Central Bank has consistently denied that it knowingly played any part in the money laundering and has cooperated fully with the Yugoslavian authorities in helping them with their investigations into the illegal siphoning of Yugoslavian funds out of the country. The investigation headed by Dinkic has led his team on a worldwide hunt for what has become known as the 'Milosevic millions'. Currently, the investigation is taking place in America and Clerides has joined the effort to get to the bottom of the mystery.

With regard to accusations that money laundering had taken place through investments in Russia, Mr Clerides confirmed that Cyprus was one of the top five foreign countries investing in Russia, but he said that most Cypriot investors in the country represented foreign and not domestic interests, such as America, Canada and Western Europe. These investors, he added, use Cyprus to make investments so they can take advantage of the country's double tax treaty with Russia.

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