FIFTY MILLION euros were not laundered from Serbia through the island in the 1990s, the Cypriot Financial Crime Unit (MOKAS) insisted yesterday.
The Unit was responding to claims made on the B92 radio station in Belgrade last week that the trial for a money laundering operation, which moved the money, will begin in September.
Attorney Predrag Milovancevic told the station that the trial would begin on September 5 in the Belgrade District Court.
But MOKAS told Phileleftheros that it has looked into the stories circulating in the Serbian press, where certain companies have been implicated and 22 arrests have been made in connection with the case.
MOKAS chief Eva Papakyriacou is said to have contacted her counterparts in Belgrade, requesting further information.
According to bank documents she was privy to, the money was not transferred through Cyprus but was transferred from Serbia to banks of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, where it is thought the laundering took place.
However, a Serbian businessman living on the island, who is involved in a case in which he claims he was a victim of Serbian money laundering operations taking place in Cyprus, yesterday told the Mail that what MOKAS was saying was not the case. “This money was indeed laundered through the island and the authorities are fully aware of what’s going on,” he said.
He added there were a large number of people involved, with much of the money coming from illicit criminal activities. “The EU should wake up to what’s going on and look into this seriously.”
Djordjevic said Cyprus had been chosen as a location, “as it is probably the easiest country in Europe from which to open an offshore company which can then open accounts anywhere in the world. Very little documentation is required. In this way dirty money was attracted and Cyprus lost billions of real, proper and legitimate investments and capital from abroad, with people scared away by the bad reputation Cyprus accumulated because of constant cover-up over the years.”
He added that the 22 people arrested in Serbia used Cypriot companies they had set up to launder money through accounts opened in banks in Skopje, Macedonia.
“All I am interested in is to protect the name and reputation of Cyprus, which is being damaged in this cover-up,” he added. “That I’m telling the truth was fully confirmed by United Nations ICTY Prosecution in The Hague and their expert team led by Morten Torkildsen.”
The Serbian Special Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime issued indictments in March for the case of illegal transfer of funds to Cyprus in the 1990s, during the Milosevic regime.
The indictment includes former director of the Yugoslav customs administration Mihalj Kertes, the late former Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Jovan Zebic, the late Serbian and Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and former Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Sainovic.
The cases against Milosevic and Zebic have been closed since both are now dead.
The trial against Sainovic will be separated from the rest because he has also been indicted by The Hague Tribunal.
The indictment states that the former state officials participated in financial activity that incurred damages to the state. The money is said to have been used to finance public companies and the Socialist Party of Serbia.
