EU Passports for Sale in Cyprus Lure Rich Russians
- Program attracted $4.4 billion in investment over four years
- One Russian got citizenship after buying two Limassol villas
A customer exits a Russian supermarket in Limassol, Cyprus, on Thursday, March 21, 2013. The European Central Bank said it may cut Cypriot banks off from emergency funds after March 25 as the island nation's president, Nicos Anastasiades, scrambled to forge agreement on a plan to stave off financial collapse.
Photographer: Simon Dawson/BloombergOn a stretch of a waterfront boulevard in Limassol, on the southern coast of Cyprus, shop signs in Cyrillic are abundant. Yachts emblazoned with Russian monikers fill berths in a newly built marina. And just past the office of radio station Russkaya Volna, restaurants lining the boardwalk serve pelmeni with, of course, vodka.
This Moscow-on-the-Mediterranean has blossomed as Russians and their money flock to the tiny European Union outpost to become, in a sense, not Russian. Long known as a hub for offshore Russian finance -- and more recently as a focus of investigations into Russian links to President Donald Trump’s entourage -- Cyprus has enabled a more sophisticated way to camouflage those funds: If you can’t launder a Russian’s cash, the scheme goes, launder the Russian himself.