In August 2024 the Cyprus Registrar of Companies received a letter from Yury Chyzh, a well-known Belarusian businessman, previously sanctioned by the EU for “financial support of the Lukashenko regime.”
Belarus’ head of state Aleksandr Lukashenko has clung to power since 1993, rigging elections, torturing critics, and arresting and ill-treating protesters, all with the aid and approval of the Kremlin.
In Chyzh’s letter – obtained by the Belarusian civil society NGO Rabochy Ruch and shared with the Belarusian Investigative Center – he claimed that he was always the ultimate beneficiary owner of the Cyprus-registered companies Welgro Services Ltd and Profax Investments Ltd, which had since their formation in 2008 been registered to nominee owners. His claim is part of an ongoing legal fight in Belarusian courts, where he’s disputing the current company ownership of his own children.
Screenshot from Chyzh’s letter to the Department of Registrar of Companies
But before his relatives were listed as shareholders in 2017, the companies Chyzh is laying claim to were owned by Imperium Nominees Ltd. Until 2016, they were also serviced by Imperium Services Ltd as secretary and the Nicos Chr. Anastasiades and Partners law firm as legal advisers.
This includes the period that Chyzh was under EU sanctions between 2012 and 2015.
Screenshot from Chyzh’s letter to the Cyprus Registrar of Companies
Cyprus registry records confirm that the shareholders of Imperium Nominees Ltd during this period were the former Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades’ daughter, Elsa Anastasiades, as well his long-time business partners, Stathis Lemis and Theophanis Th. Philippou. Ino Anastasiades joined Imperium Nominees Ltd in 2015.
Nicos Anastasiades himself owned the majority of the law firm that bears his name, as well as Imperium Services Ltd, until he passed his shares to his daughters and partners in February 2013, just before assuming the office of the President of the Republic of Cyprus.
In response to questions from reporters, the former president wrote that he was “unaware and therefore unable to answer” but asserted “the totally legal procedures followed” by the law firm that bears his name. He also attached a 2021 statement to the Parliament, which claimed that his “participation in the management of the affairs” of his former law firm was “non-exsistent” since 1997, and that he has “absolutely no relationship or connection with the firm” since he transferred his shares in 2013.
(Anastasiades previously told CIReN that he was a “silent partner” in the law firm from the time he was elected head of his political party DISY in 1997. CIReN has reported that Anastasiades collected dividends from the law firm as the majority of his income until as late as 2012.)
Writing on behalf of Nicos Chr. Anastasiades law firm, which includes all the shareholders of the Imperium companies, Philippou said “we definitely deny all allegations of unlawful or improper conduct on the part of our firm” and claimed that the questions posed by reporters were “groundless, unproven, and appear to be based on incorrect assumptions.”
Chyzh, for his part, claimed in the letter to the Registrar of Companies that all officials of the companies he lays claim to “have always been aware that I am the ultimate beneficiary of the business,” and that the companies “have always been supported using my funds, I have always given binding instructions.”
More specifically, he says he owned the companies from 2008 to 2017 through Imperium Nominees Limited. Chyzh did not respond to questions from reporters.
“The nominees and directors of a company, as well as those who provide corporate services to it, have a legal obligation to know the identity of their client, as well as the origin of any money,” Cypriot lawyer Charilaos Velaris, told CIReN. “The obligation is the same for the nominees. They must know who the UBO is and not help him to commit an offense.”
“Significant Turnover”
Of the three Cypriot companies Chyzh claimed in his 2024 letter to the Cyprus Registrar of Companies, two are the subject of the lawsuit he filed in September in the Financial Court of Minsk District.
His claim to Welgro and Profax is that they collectively hold 90 percent of the shares in TriplePharm, a Belarusian pharmaceutical company publicly tied to Chyzh. In fact, TriplePharm was one of the companies the EU sanctioned in connection with Chyzh in 2012.
(The EU sanctions were lifted in late 2015, after Chyzh sought annulment of the decision imposing sanctions.)
Belarusian corporate records confirm that TriplePharm is owned by Welgro and Profax since it was established in 2008.
In the letter to the Cyprus Registrar of Companies, Chyzh argued that his Belarusian companies have “business with a long history and significant turnover,” and therefore his children, the oldest of whom was born in 1988, could not have reasonably been the ultimate owners.
Financial records show that Profax loaned millions to TriplePharm, and by the time the Belarusian company was sanctioned together with Chyzh in 2012, it still owed over $500,000. Profax’s financial filings show the loan was repaid in 2014, a transaction that appears to be in breach of EU sanctions.
Chyzh’s ownership claims reveal another previously unconfirmed connection: a Cypriot company that recorded multi-billion-dollar turnover from a Russian petroleum re-export scheme that took place between 2011 and 2014.
Mabor Co made huge loans to other firms in the network, including one in 2011 for $222.2 million to Cypriot company Bertament Limited. Financial documents from the Cyprus registry show that Mabor was listed as a “related party” to Bertament, meaning there is a formal relationship through directors or owners. And because Bertament is listed in company documents as a subsidiary of Profax, Chyzh’s claim suggests that he is the ultimate beneficial owner. It is not clear if the loan was repaid.
In January 2012, Bertament Limited signed a contract for a 16-day stay for a group of Belarusians at a Russian ski resort. The $25,000 invoice was issued to Theophanis Philippou, and the guest list included Chyzh, two businessmen currently sanctioned by the EU, several athletes and beauty queens, and Alexander Lukashenko’s personal priest. Their holiday coincided with Lukashenko staying at the same resort, where in addition to a short-term vacation the Belarusian leader met with then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev for political talks.
On paper, Mabor Co was also nominally owned and operated by Imperium Nominees Limited.
Mabor was dissolved in July 2024, a month before Chyzh appealed to the Cyprus Registrar of Companies to recognize his ownership of Profax.
Philippou, the shareholder of Imperium Nominees and managing partner of Nicos Chr. Anastasiades and Partners law firm, signed the documents for Mabor’s funds transfers.
Reached by phone, Philippou said he remembered the company name, but declined to comment on specifics. He did not respond to questions about Mabor in writing.