Cyprus authorities have banned banks from conducting transactions with the ruble – Kommersant

The Cyprus government has ordered banks to stop all transactions with the Russian ruble, a local publication reported. Politics. At the same time, legal and accounting organizations are conducting inspections regarding the abuse of the accelerated business registration procedure, with the help of which Russians received residence permits and work permits in Cyprus.

Politics notes that the United States will soon send a team of 24 people to the country, including employees of the FBI and the financial crimes enforcement agency (FinCen). They will participate in the consideration of 29 court cases related to circumvention of sanctions against Russia.

According to the newspaper Cyprus Mailthe decisions to cease transactions with Russian currency and the participation of American specialists in the investigation of cases were made against the backdrop of an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ) into violations of the sanctions regime against Russia in Cyprus.

The ICIJ investigation was published on November 14. In particular, it talks about the investments of Russian businessmen on the island and the scandal associated with “golden passports”. According to Cyprus Mail, employees of the PricewaterhouseCoopers office in Cyprus are involved in circumventing sanctions.

After the publication of the ICIJ investigation, cards issued in Russia by the Chinese payment system UnionPay stopped working in Cyprus. In the Ministry of Finance of Cyprus statedthat blocking cards was not a government instruction for financial institutions. According to the department representative, the termination of UnionPay is “a unilateral decision of the payment service provider in accordance with its own risk assessment policies.”

Polina Motyzlevskaya