A Cypriot political party, “I the Citizen,” was founded in 2017 by a group of wealthy Russians who have used the island’s lax financial and citizenship laws to gain residence while obscuring funds. One founder, Alexei Voloboev, is a businessman with murky connections to Russian media and energy entities; other connected individuals come from different industries, but the leadership appears to share Russian backgrounds and significant, if not always explained, wealth. In the past, Cypriot financial institutions have been accused on multiple occasions of insufficient diligence in preventing money laundering, including cases allegedly involving Russian organized crime.