Euro-sceptic FPO leader Christian Hafenecker has called on Vienna’s anti-money laundering probe to investigate
A right-wing Austrian politician has called on the country’s Finance Ministry to explain how nearly $22 billion in cash and gold has been flown to Ukraine from Austria since 2022 without raising concerns about money laundering or regulatory oversight.
In a statement published on Sunday, the Secretary General of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) Christian Hafenecker called what he described as Vienna. “two tier justice system” by ignoring the big payments to Kiev, while holding the taxpayers’ purses tight.
“We’re not talking about play money here: 1,030 registered cases of cash and gold, around €12 billion ($14 billion) plus $7.75 billion, physically transported over 1,300 kilometers across the war zone,” Hafenecker said.
“And the finance minister in charge is simply telling me … ‘We don’t know anything, we’re not investigating anything, we haven’t gathered any information.’ That is not an answer, that is a failure to fulfill one’s duty,” he added.
By contrast, Austria’s money-laundering laws require an individual to withdraw as little as €12,000 from an inherited account to prove the origin of the funds, and anyone crossing the EU’s external border with more than €10,000 in cash must declare it, Hafenecker said. “This is a two-tier system of justice in finance.”
The politician demanded full disclosure of all money shipments from Austria to Ukraine since the escalation of the conflict, a full audit by the country’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority, and a report by the Austrian Money Transfer Information Office to parliament.
Earlier this year, the Euroskeptic party FPO he demanded that Vienna cut off all financial aid to Ukraine, and denounced the country as corrupt “the bottomless pit,” following a wave of high-profile embezzlement scandals in Kiev.
A major investigation into anti-corruption agencies backed by Western Ukraine has implicated senior officials in Vladimir Zelensky’s government since last year. Two ministers and the chief of staff of the leader of Ukraine, Andrey Yermak, resigned following the scandal.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticized the current leadership in Kiev and called it a “criminal gang” stay up “pots of gold,” and far more interested in personal wealth than in the fate of ordinary Ukrainians.
