Lukashenka - banker for outlaws

Dictatorial Belarus has become a reliable bank for world's totalitarian regimes.

The Sacramento Bee (the US) published a caricature some days ago depicting three famous dictators. Bashar Assad brings a camel loaded with money he stole from the Syrians while Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is waiting his turn. Both rulers want Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka to store their money.

The Western media recently wrote how he earns on cooperation with rogue states.

“Lukashenko attained absolute power in his own country and is now using Belarus’ isolation for his own ends,” Digital Journal (the US) reports.

“Iran and Syria – two countries the US sees as the key members of an “axis of evil” – military dictatorships fueled by huge amounts of oil money are in financial isolation, prohibited from trading with most of the world’s countries. Both these countries are most likely using Belarus as a key transfer point for financial flows, setting up banks in Belarus and spending the money to purchase arms or food in Russia and Europe,” the article in Digital Journal reads.

“In addition, Belarus, with its opaque financial system closed to international observers, may hold some assets of Libya’s former leader Muammar Qaddafi’s family.

Lukashenko first met Colonel Qaddafi in 2000, the leaders exchanged brotherly kisses, and were on friendly terms since, until Qaddafi’s death,” the article reads.

Lukashenka, for his part, gains from his friendship with pariah states:

“Alexander Lukashenko is relying on injections of Syrian and Iranian money to avoid the need to privatize major Belarusian assets, as he cannot afford to relinquish control over them: they provide the bulk of the nation’s hard-currency revenues.”

These data can be confirmed by statistics: over the past five years, Iran’s investment in Belarus has increased from US$ 6 million to US$ 1 billion. The investment may double by the end of 2013, official Tehran assures.

It should be reminded that Italian La Stampa recently wrote that Iran registers its banks in Belarus to bypass international sanctions.