Anti-corruption activist Bill Browder is accusing Cypriot authorities of enabling money laundering through the island’s property market by a Russian organised crime figure, Politico reported on Wednesday.
According to Politico, Dimitry Klyuev, who has been convicted in Russia for fraud and is under sanctions for organised crime in the US, Canada, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, has been assisted by an interior ministry employee to buy a house in Limassol with suspicious funds.
Browder, according to Politico, says he has an official document that proved his claim.
Browder sent his complaint against the civil servant who approved the transaction to five Cyprus law enforcement authorities on July 2 this year, Politico said.
The complaint said that in 2014 an official in the interior ministry, tasked with examining requests for real estate purchases by foreign nationals, instructed Klyuev to put a house into his son’s name to gain state approval.
The approval came on May 12, 2014, eight days ahead of impending US sanctions. His involvement in fraud and money laundering was all readily available in the public domain, Politico said.
Canadian sanctions against Klyuev were already in force at the time, having been unveiled in November 2017.
Registration of Klyuev’s property in Cyprus took place on May 28, 2014, eight days after the US sanctions took effect, according to Browder’s complaint.
“This property will be transferred immediately to the name of Grigory Klyuev (Dmitry Klyuev son),” the interior ministry civil servant said in a letter to Klyuev that Browder showed Politico.
Politico did not name the civil servant implicated by Browder because they did not respond to comment-seeking requests.
The government declined to make comments on the person’s behalf citing an ongoing investigation.
Police have received Browder’s complaint and started a formal investigation, a government spokesperson told Politico.
Browder’s letter was also sent to the justice minister, the head of the anti-money laundering authority, the attorney general and the interior minister.
His complaint, seen by Politico, said the approval cleared Klyuev to buy a three-bedroom villa worth €245,000 in Germasogeia in May 2014.
Browder’s crusade against the Russian mafia began after his Moscow investment fund, Hermitage Capital Management, was raided in 2007 by interior ministry officers, who confiscated stamps and documents which were subsequently used to file bogus tax returns to the Russian Treasury, which were paid out to bank accounts controlled by Klyuev and his associates, according to the US government.
The scheme was discovered by lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was working for Browder. Magnitsky was arrested after he complained to the Russian authorities and he died in prison in 2009, following what Russia’s human rights ombudsman said were beatings by guards.
Browder has since successfully lobbied governments around the world to bring in so-called Magnitsky laws to impose tough financial sanctions human rights abusers.
