https://www.vindobona.org/article/uncovering-of-money-laundering-and-real-estate-fraud-in-austria-and-cyprus

New leaks have uncovered a complex network of opaque asset transfers centered around Russian oligarchs and Austrian real estate. According to the investigative project "Cyprus Confidential", Austrian real estate is particularly popular with wealthy Russians. Around 40 Cypriot companies own real estate in Vienna, often penthouses in expensive locations.

The advantages of these company structures are discretion and tax benefits. Elena Scherschneva, an expert in money laundering and compliance, points out that estate agents, notaries, and banks often act in isolation in these transactions, which means that the overall picture is lost, as reported by ORF.

One prominent example is the purchase of a Vienna city center palace by former bank boss Julius Meinl via Cypriot letterbox companies and the subsequent resale to Meinl Bank. The sale of the palace to entrepreneur Siegfried Wolf also took place via Cyprus. In total, the leaks contain 28,000 entries relating to Austria, including 5,000 mentions of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) in connection with Cypriot financial service providers.

Another high-ranking person affected is former Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser, who is linked to Cypriot shell companies. However, his lawyers emphasize that criminal financial proceedings in this connection have been discontinued.

The extensive data material was analyzed by an international network of journalists under the leadership of the ICIJ and Paper Trail Media. The ORF and "Der Standard" were involved in Austria.

Reactions from the SPÖ

EU politician Evelyn Regner commented emphatically on the revelations and called for stronger measures against money laundering and terrorist financing. She emphasized the need for a unified European anti-money laundering authority (AMLA), which should act as a "European FBI against financial crime".

These revelations shed a disturbing light on the entanglements between corporate structures, real estate trading, and financial crime and underline the urgency of effective regulation and monitoring at the European level.