Belarusian Businessman Claims Former Cyprus President’s Family Held Firms For Him

Prior to a court battle over ownership of his assets, Belarusian businessman Yury Chyzh has produced a written admission that he used “nominee” owners to maintain control of two firms registered in Cyprus. 

The nominee owners of the two firms included his three children, Chyzh wrote in a letter to the Cyprus Registrar of Companies. The previous nominee owner was a firm owned by the daughter and business partners of Nicos Anastasiades, the former president of Cyprus, which is a member of the European Union.

Chyzh was under EU sanctions at the time.

Nominee owners are figureheads who appear in official paperwork to meet regulatory requirements, but do not actually control a company.

“I have always owned these companies through trustees and nominee beneficiaries,” Chyzh wrote in the August 2024 letter, which was obtained by the civil society group Rabochy Ruch and shared with the Belarusian Investigative Center. 

From 2017, Chyzh’s three children were added in succession as a “nominal beneficiary” of the Cyprus firms Welgro Services Limited and Profax Investments Limited, according to Chyzh. Before then, he wrote, he owned both firms “through Imperium Nominees Limited.”

Imperial Nominees is a corporate service provider, and Chyzh’s firms were only two among many clients. Corporate records show that Imperium Nominees is owned by the daughters and previous business partners of Anastasiades, who was Cyprus’ president from 2013 to 2023.

The timing is critical. Between 2012 and 2015, Chyzh was under EU sanctions for financially supporting the regime of Aleksandr Lukashenko, Belarus’ notoriously corrupt and authoritarian president. 

Anastasiades said he had no ownership of Imperium or the law firm bearing his name, as he transferred his shares to his daughter and former business partners before assuming the presidency. 

His former business partner, Theophanis Th. Philippou, speaking for the owners of the law and corporate services firms, strongly denied any “unlawful or improper conduct.”

Family Businesses

Chizh's latest legal battle in Belarus comes five years after he was arrested on fraud and money laundering charges, after reportedly falling out of favor with Lukashenko. Chizh was convicted in 2023.

In July 2021, five months after his arrest, the Minsk Economic Court declared his Triple Group of companies bankrupt due to debts to creditors. The court terminated the bankruptcy proceedings in 2024. It is unclear what the outcome of the bankruptcy process was.

The bankruptcy included one of his key companies, TriplePharm, which is majority owned by the firms he wrote about in his letter to the Cypriot corporate registry, Welgro Services Limited and Profax Investments Limited. 

Chyzh filed a lawsuit in September 2025 against those two Cypriot companies in a Belarus court in an effort to regain control of his assets. Chyzh’s three children have been called as third parties in the case on the side of the Cypriot firms that are being sued, Welgro Services Limited and Profax Investments Limited. The lawsuit is ongoing.

Both those Cypriot companies were also serviced until the end of 2015 by two more firms owned by Anastasiades’ daughters and his former business partners, according to corporate records. 

Imperium Services Ltd was secretary for the companies, while the Nicos Chr. Anastasiades and Partners law firm acted as legal advisers. 

Anastasiades owned the majority of Imperium Services, as well as the law firm that bears his name, until his presidency beginning in February 2013. Just before assuming office, he passed his shares to his daughter Elsa, — and his business partners,Philippou and Stathis Lemis. His other daughter, Ino, was added as a shareholder in 2015. 

The former president said he was “unaware and therefore unable to answer” questions emailed by CIReN, OCCRP’s member center in Cyprus. “In lieu of any other reply,” he attached a letter he sent to Cyprus’ parliament in 2021.

“Since the transfer of the shares I have had absolutely no relationship or connection with the firm that bears my name,” Anastasiades wrote to parliament that year. “Nor does the composition of the share capital in any way justify the claim that it is the law firm ‘of the president’s daughters.’”

He told CIReN that the law firm would provide more “detailed answers.”

The firm’s partners include both Anastasiades’ daughters, as well as Lemis and Philippou, who are managing partners. All four of them are also shareholders of Imperium companies. 

“We definitely deny all allegations of unlawful or improper conduct on the part of our firm,” Philippou wrote in an emailed response to questions, including how often sanctions lists were checked against companies being provided with corporate services.

Anastasiades’ daughters did not directly respond to questions. Nor did Lemis. Chyzh did not respond to a request for comment. 

‘Significant Turnover’

Chyzh’s August 2024 letter to the Cyprus Registrar of Companies came in the run-up to his legal battle in Belarus over control of the companies. 

“I am sending you this letter in order to notify you of the situation that has developed,” Chyzh wrote in the letter, which was notarized in Moscow.

Although they appeared on documents as the owners, Chyzh wrote that his children “have always performed only intermediary functions, acting on my behalf and under my instructions. I have always been and remain the real beneficiary of Welgro Services Limited and Profax Investments Limited.”

Chyzh also pointed out that his children were born in 1988, 1990 and 1996. That would have made them about 20, 18 and 12 years old when the first of the companies was formed in 2008.

“They did not have the financial or other capabilities to establish the companies,” he wrote.

While the outcome of the bankruptcy of Chizh’s Belarusian companies is unclear, corporate documents from Belarus show that TriplePharm is active today, and is 90-percent-owned by the Cyprus companies.

Chyzh noted that the Cyprus firms are “members of” companies in Belarus. “These Belarusian companies represent businesses with a long history and significant turnover,” he added. 

In 2011, a subsidiary of Profax called Bertament Limited received a $222 million loan from another Cypriot firm, Mabor Co Ltd. Mabor was described in annual financial reports as a “related party” to Bertament. This means the two companies share some degree of common ownership or control, suggesting the possibility that the same beneficiary of Bertament may have had shares in, and possibly full control over, Mabor.

Mabor was also owned, on paper, by Imperium Nominees. 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. It is not clear if the loan was repaid. 

Philippou did not respond to a question about whether Chyzh owned Mabor.

Financial filings show that the company recorded $4.3 billion in turnover in 2011, from re-exporting Russian petroleum products from Belarus.

Mabor was dissolved in July 2024, a month before Chyzh appealed to the Cyprus registry to recognize his ownership of Profax.

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.

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 for the trip was issued to Philippou, who did not reply to a question from reporters about it.

The guestlist included Chyzh, two businessmen currently sanctioned by the EU, and several athletes and beauty queens, as well as Lukashenko’s personal priest. The holiday coincided with a trip Lukashenko made to the same resort, where he met with then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.