US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents with financial crime training will be in Cyprus next month to assist in the criminal investigation of cases of possible sanctions evasion by foreign investors through domestic financial services companies.
An authoritative source of information reported this to Phileleftheros. Due to his position, this person has an insight into the investigative work of competent services of the Republic of Cyprus to the sanctions so far.
As he explained, speaking to our newspaper, “a team of Americans had contacts in Cyprus around the beginning of December to launch the investigation”.
He added, however, that “the FBI members who according to what has been reported, will be in Cyprus by February, have operational experience and training.” He explained that “the contacts that are being made now will help these specialized FBI members to immediately get into the deep end upon their arrival in Cyprus and assist substantially to shed light on the cases”.
The same source of information told us that until the end of this week, officials of the US Embassy in Nicosia had meetings with officials of the competent services and departments of the Cypriot state to prepare the ground for the descent of the FBI’s operational staff.
The above information is in line with what the deputy government spokesman, Giannis Antoniou, had said around the end of November in the wake of the revelations of the ICIJ consortium of investigative journalists, which, among other things, had left shadows about the transfer of investment capital from Alexei Mordasov ($1.4 billion) to another person through Cyprus on the day he was sanctioned by the European Union.
