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.

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.

The European Commission has sent legal warnings to Cyprus, Portugal, the Netherlands and five other EU states over their delays in applying new anti-money laundering rules adopted at European Union level two years ago.

Public quarrels between politicians and rich businessmen over alleged links to organized crime are hardly new, especially in a country ranked among the most corrupt in Europe, Bloomberg reported.
The case of Vasil Bozhkov in Bulgaria, though, has captured the national imagination because it cuts to the heart of the Balkan country's heritage.

A European money laundering watchdog has cautioned that a secretive investment-for-passports program run by Cyprus was vulnerable to money laundering and fraught with risk.
The Mediterranean island launched the scheme offering passports for an investment in 2013, with more than 3,000 people gaining citizenship through the program.