Money laundering suspect unable to afford bail

The 31-year-old Ukrainian woman who stands accused of money laundering was jailed pending a trial on Wednesday after being unable to afford bail.

The woman stands accused of laundering around €8 million but was unable to pay the €150,000 guarantee which would have allowed her to be released.

The Larnaca district court had set conditions of a €150,000 bail, a €50,000 guarantee from a trustworthy guarantor, a ban on leaving Cyprus, and that she would have to appear three times at a police station in Limassol.

However, after the woman was unable to pay the bail price set, she was transferred to the central prison in Nicosia.

The case came to light when the woman reported to police on March 1 that she had been robbed of €420,000 in cash just hours after having arrived on the island.

However, suspicions of money laundering were raised shortly afterwards, and she was arrested herself the following day.

It later turned out that the woman had made a total of 15 trips to the island during a period of seven months, declaring “large sums of money” to customs officers upon each arrival. Police insisted that it was a “matter of time” before she would have been arrested.

Police spokesman Christos Andreou said the woman had already been under investigation, and that her explanations to customs officers on previous arrivals were now believed to have been “insufficient”.

The woman appeared in court in Larnaca days later, and, according to reports, testimonies were obtained that, before police arrived at the scene, she had entered a restaurant and handed a paper bag containing money that had fallen to the ground during the robbery to an unknown person.

A 43-year-old man was identified as the alleged recipient of the money. He most recently appeared in court on Tuesday and was released on a €30,000 bail.

The woman’s trial is scheduled to begin in May.