“The EU on Monday (13 May) said many Cypriot banks do not know who their customers really are, but wired Nicosia €2 billion anyway. Commenting on a recent study on money laundering in the Mediterranean island, eurozone finance ministers said in a joint communique that it must do better on ‘customer due diligence by banks’ and must fix ‘the functioning of [its] company registry.’ A branch of the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe and US accountancy firm Deloitte did the audit in March and April. Cyprus hosts about 12,000 shell companies which have no physical presence on the island. But its company registry has a 10-year backlog of paperwork on who owns what.”
