Bank Records Link President of Cyprus to ‘Troika Laundromat’

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As president of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades has worked to strengthen his country’s relationship with russia while dealing with international criticism of its lax financial and money laundering controls, OCCRP reports.

But several years before his 2013 election, a law firm he established and co-owned, and in which he was a partner at the time, was arranging business deals linked to a friend of russian President Vladimir putin, the infamous Magnitsky scandal, and a network of companies used in various financial crimes.

Anastasiades stepped away from the firm, called Nicos Chr. Anastasiades and Partners LLC, just as he was ascending to the presidency. But both of his daughters are partners, and he still has a private office in the building (where only one other affiliated firm is a co-tenant).

Records from the defunct Lithuanian Ukio Bankas, obtained by OCCRP and 15min.lt and analyzed by a joint team from OCCRP, IRPI, and Global Witness, reveal the law firm’s work executing complex deals that moved russian money to and from shell companies created by and associated with the firm.

Two of those shells — Batherm Ventures Ltd. and Matias Co Ltd. — appear to be deeply entwined with the Troika Laundromat, a network of shell companies that operated from 2006 to 2013, moving at least $4.6 billion and enabling its users to hide assets, evade taxes, or launder money.

Batherm and Matias sent more than $323 million into the system for various reasons, mostly unknown.

The leaked documents also suggest that Alexander Abramov, a russian billionaire, was behind both companies, and that he used them to buy a major russian energy concern at an enormous discount. Abramov later received a Cypriot EU passport with the help of the Anastasiades law firm.

The documents do not contain any specific evidence that the firm or its employees broke any laws or committed any crimes. The transactions do raise questions about dealings between Anastasiades’ law firm, his associates, and russian financial networks used for criminal activity. They also reenforce long-standing concerns about relationships that some say have compromised Cyprus’s independence.

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