32-year-old Ukrainian woman sentenced to 20 months for false declarations on import of capital
A woman from Ukraine was found guilty of 20 counts of false declarations at Customs after bringing nearly eight million euros into Cyprus through twenty separate transfers.
32-year-old Ukrainian woman sentenced to 20 months for false declarations on import of capital
The Permanent Criminal Court of Nicosia imposed a sentence of twenty months imprisonment on a 32-year-old woman from Ukraine, who was found guilty of twenty charges related to inaccurate declarations before customs authorities. The amount she imported into the country reached €7,769,300, through twenty different arrivals from August 2023 to March 2024.
The case came to light in early March 2024, when she approached police authorities claiming she had been a victim of theft in Limassol. According to what she reported at the time, individuals on a motorcycle took €420,000 from her. The investigations that followed led to her arrest, after it emerged that she had made multiple entries whilst transferring significant sums of money.
At an earlier court hearing, the court had acquitted the defendant on charges of money laundering from criminal activity, as no evidence of criminal conduct emerged. These particular charges carry penalties of up to fourteen years. In parallel, a 43-year-old man from the same country, who was said to have received a package containing cash, was also acquitted.
When announcing the decision, the court took into account as mitigating factors the fact that the defendant had declared the capital to the authorities, as well as that she has two minor children. Her defence was undertaken by lawyers Maria Neophytou, Marinos Armeftis and Christos Charalambous.
Source: Philenews