Money laundering

Cyprus says it is introducing tougher anti-money laundering checks in its "golden passports" program, under which it gives citizenship to foreigners who invest large sums in the east Mediterranean country.

Greek Cyprus' supreme court on May 29 upheld an order to extradite a suspected Hezbollah member to the U.S. on money laundering charges, official media said.

A five-judge bench unanimously dismissed an appeal against a decision by a lower court in September 2019 to extradite the man, identified only by his surname Diab, the Greek Cyprus News Agency said.

 Eleven people, aged between 25 and 52, have been arrested as members of a money laundering gang in the city of Kalamata in southern Greece, police said Wednesday. The arrests took place on Tuesday. 

A plan to boost European Union powers to curb the flow of dirty money through banks faced resistance at an EU meeting from member states recently hit by major money-laundering and financial fraud scandals, three officials told Reuters.

The Vice President of the European Commission, responsible for the economy in the interest of the people, Valdis Dombrovskis praised Bulgaria as the only country that meets the criterion for the EU budget deficit, BGNES reported.

At the same time, he added that recommendations have been made to us and 10 other Member States regarding money laundering.

A plan to boost European Union powers to curb the flow of dirty money through banks faced resistance at an EU meeting from member states recently hit by major money-laundering and financial fraud scandals, three officials told Reuters.

A judicial council has decided that former defense minister Yiannos Papantoniou cannot be prosecuted until the charges against him have been further investigated. 
After he had spent 17 months in pre-trial detention on money laundering charges in Korydallos Prison, the judicial council accepted Papantoniou's pledge to pay 150,000 euros in bail by July 1 and released him last week. 

The authorities on Saturday banned anyone from entering or leaving the town of Tandarei in Ialomita county in south-east Romania after abnormally large numbers of COVID-19 infections and deaths were registered in the municipality of 13,000 in recent days.

The International Monetary Fund expressed concern in a report issued on Wednesday about the weak supervision of the non-banking financial sector in Moldova and about inadequate efforts to prevent and combat money-laundering and the financing of terrorism.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov has denied links to a suspected money-laundering scheme based in Barcelona. He issued the denial after a Barcelona-based newspaper published a front-page report on Friday claiming he and other senior officials in Sofia might be linked to another Bulgarian citizen in Spain suspected of laundering millions of euros through the city.