Did the Russian Oligarchs Really Take a Beating in Cyprus?
The Russian oligarchs took a real beating as a result of the reported settlement of the Cyprus banking crisis. At least it looks that way on paper. After all, reports say as much as 40% of accounts over 100,000 euros was confiscated from those accounts.
But wait a minute. That just doesn't sit right. If the Russians were these powerful and scary oligarchs that we wrote about yesterday, how is it that all this money is going to be stolen from them?
First of all, if they do lose money, it won't be because of the Cyprus politicians. As we noted yesterday, they changed their minds about stealing from the Russians - and for good reason.
But what about the European officials behind the settlement? Well, if they indeed do steal Russian money, you can expect a response at some point in the future. Do you imagine characters like this will take being stolen from lying down? I don't think so.
Still, I was puzzled that so much money would be taken from dangerous characters like this, even by arrogant bureaucrats in Euro land. Well, as it turns out they may not have lost as much as it looks like on paper. It would seem there's a lot of "missing money" in those Cyprus banks that we were told were closed - locked tight, not allowing anyone to take out more than a small portion of their money through ATM machines.
But wait a minute. That just doesn't sit right. If the Russians were these powerful and scary oligarchs that we wrote about yesterday, how is it that all this money is going to be stolen from them?
First of all, if they do lose money, it won't be because of the Cyprus politicians. As we noted yesterday, they changed their minds about stealing from the Russians - and for good reason.
But what about the European officials behind the settlement? Well, if they indeed do steal Russian money, you can expect a response at some point in the future. Do you imagine characters like this will take being stolen from lying down? I don't think so.
Still, I was puzzled that so much money would be taken from dangerous characters like this, even by arrogant bureaucrats in Euro land. Well, as it turns out they may not have lost as much as it looks like on paper. It would seem there's a lot of "missing money" in those Cyprus banks that we were told were closed - locked tight, not allowing anyone to take out more than a small portion of their money through ATM machines.
No one knows exactly how much money has left Cyprus' banks, or where it has gone. The two banks at the centre of the crisis - Cyprus Popular Bank, also known as Laiki, and Bank of Cyprus - have units in London which remained open throughout the week and placed no limits on withdrawals. Bank of Cyprus also owns 80 percent of Russia's Uniastrum Bank, which put no restrictions on withdrawals in Russia. Russians were among Cypriot banks' largest depositors.More...
While ordinary Cypriots queued at ATM machines to withdraw a few hundred euros as credit card transactions stopped, other depositors used an array of techniques to access their money.
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