Over €51.5 million in assets frozen in Cyprus since 2023, half tied to golden passports
Police told the House audit committee that asset freezes have risen sharply, while an Audit Office report flagged gaps in banking supervision.
Assets worth more than €51.5 million have been frozen in Cyprus between 2023 and August 2026, police told the House audit committee on Thursday. Roughly half the total is linked to investigations involving the golden passport scheme, even though those cases make up a smaller share of the total number.
Afxentis Constantinou, head of the police financial crime investigation unit, gave the yearly picture: about €550,000 in nine cases in 2023, €8.5 million in 26 cases in 2024 and €10.5 million in 28 cases in 2025. In the first eight months of 2026 alone, more than €32 million was frozen across 23 cases.
He cautioned that a freeze does not mean an investigation is complete or that property has been permanently confiscated, and he attributed the increase to better police training and to financial investigations run alongside criminal ones. He acknowledged that communication with the anti-money-laundering unit Mokas had been problematic until 2024, saying new cooperation procedures have since been introduced.
The committee was examining an Audit Office report covering January 2020 to July 2024. It pointed to understaffing at the Central Bank, long delays in supervisory inspections — some took two years or more — weaknesses in suspicious-transaction reporting and shortcomings in cooperation between authorities.
The golden passport scheme was terminated in 2020 following allegations of corruption and abuse.
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