COUNTERING TERRORIST FINANCING
SPEAKERS
Savvas Angelides
Savvas Angelides, Deputy Attorney General of the Republic of Cyprus
Michael Tatham
Mr Michael Tatham CMG assumed the role of British High Commissioner to the Republic of Cyprus in November 2024. Previously Mr Tatham was the Delivery Director for the European Political Community Summit hosted by the UK in July 2024. He was the UK’s Deputy Head of Mission in Washington DC from 2018 to 2022. He has completed a number of diplomatic postings and has specialised in supporting post-communist transition processes and conflict resolution in Central and Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans. Mr Tatham has also served as Director Eastern Europe and Central Asia; Political Counsellor at the UK Mission to the United Nations; British Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina; Head of Western Balkans Group in the then FCO; Deputy Head of Mission at the British Embassy in Prague; and Private Secretary (Foreign Affairs) to the Prime Minister.
Nicola Muccioli
MONEYVAL Chairperson - Mr Muccioli has more than 20 years of experience in the field of anti-money laundering (AML) and combatting the financing of terrorism (CFT). He has held various positions within the San Marino government and FIU, and he represented the FIU in many international fora for combatting economic crime, including MONEYVAL and the Egmont Group. In 2003, he became Head of the AML Office of the Central Bank of the Republic of San Marino. In 2008, Mr Muccioli contributed to the drafting of the new AML/CFT Law and to the establishment of the new FIU, of which he became the Director in 2019. He is a regular member of the San Marino delegation to the Joint Committee with the EU in the context of the Monetary Agreement, and the contact person for matters dealing with the IMF and other international bodies. Since 2009 he was the head of delegation of San Marino to MONEYVAL, a member of the Bureau and since 2015 he was one of the two Co-chairs of the Working Group on Evaluations for almost ten years, during which he gained further experience in dealing with the assessment process. Before that he acted as assessor for MONEYVAL jurisdictions. Mr. Muccioli has been appointed as Chairperson of Moneyval since January 2024 for a two-year term and reelected to that position for other two-year term.
Panikos Stavrou
Panikos Stavrou has served as Deputy Chief of the Cyprus Police since September 2024. He joined the Cyprus Police in 1989 and has since served in a number of key positions, including 25 years with the Drug Law Enforcement Unit (YKAN); the Directorate of European Union and International Police Cooperation, initially as Deputy Director and subsequently as Director; the Morphou District Police Directorate as Director; the Presidential Guard Unit as Commander; and the Cyprus Intelligence Service as Deputy Director. Throughout his career, he has participated in meetings of European Union institutions and international organisations dealing with the fight against drugs and organised crime.
Loukas Lagoudis
Loukas Lagoudis is the new Vice Chairman of the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission. He served as a non-executive member of CySEC from October 2024 until his appointment as Vice Chairman in September 2026. He has extensive international experience across banking, financial services, investment management and blockchain. He has held senior positions with leading global financial institutions, including Standard Chartered, Credit Suisse, HSBC Asset Management and GAM. He is an alumnus of the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford Blockchain Strategy Programme, and holds an MSc in Risk Management from Southampton University, and a BSc in Physics from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Polina Efthyvoulou Efthymiou
Polina Efthyvoulou Efthymiou is an Attorney of the Republic and Head of the Public Prosecutors Sector. Since 2008, she has served as Cyprus’ national member and expert on the Council of Europe Committee on Counter-Terrorism (CDCT), and as national representative on the protection of victims of terrorist offences at both the Council of Europe and the European Union. She has chaired the COPEN General Matters Committee during the 11th Round of Evaluations of the Council of the European Union under the Cypriot Presidency, and has also served as both evaluator and evaluated expert in the EU’s 11th round of evaluations on drugs. An expert for the Council of Europe and the EU on terrorism and the protection of victims of terrorist offences, she has, since 1997, handled highly serious cases before all levels of the criminal courts as representative of the Prosecuting Authority. She also serves as Examiner in Criminal Procedure for the Legal Council.
Maria Kyrmizi Antoniou
Maria Kyrmizi Antoniou is a lawyer - Senior Counsel of the Republic of Cyprus at the Attorney General’s Office and for the last 3 years the Head of the Cyprus Financial Intelligence Unit - FIU Cyprus – MOKAS. She has a long-standing experience in criminal Asset Recovery, freezing and confiscating illegal proceeds and a leading role in the drafting of the relevant domestic legislation. She represented Cyprus as an expert in the area of Asset Recovery, during the deliberations before the EU Council of the 2014 Freezing and Confiscation Directive, the 2018 EU Regulation for Mutual Recognition of Freezing and Confiscation Orders as well as the 2024 EU Directive on Asset Recovery and Confiscation. Also, she participates in the Committee of experts on Criminal Asset Recovery of the Council of Europe. Currently, she is the Head of the Cyprus Delegation to the Moneyval Committee of the Council of Europe, on the evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism, where she also participated as a legal evaluator and Rapporteur during Moneyval Evaluations. In her capacity as the Head of the FIU, strongly supports initiatives of Public Private Partnership, concluding of strategic analysis Reports and technology enhancements, in order to address the continuously evolving methods of ML and the newly emerging threats.
Pany Karamanou
Pany Karamanou, Head of Directorate Financial Stability & Resolution, Central Bank of Cyprus
Georgia Anastasiou Themistocleous
Georgia Anastasiou Themistocleous joined the Ministry of Finance (MoF) in 1998 and is currently Deputy Economic Director and Head of the National Sanctions Implementation Unit (NSIU), a position she has held since the Unit's establishment in July 2025. For the past four years, her work has centered on restrictive measures and sanctions. She coordinated the establishment of Cyprus's first dedicated national competent authority for EU sanctions implementation and has led its subsequent development. She represents Cyprus at the European Commission's High-Level Meetings on Union Restrictive Measures and at the Sanctions Coordination Forums in Brussels, held twice a year since 2022. She chairs the Advisory Committee on Economic Sanctions to the NSIU and has driven closer cooperation on sanctions matters domestically, with Cypriot supervisory and competent authorities, and internationally, including through participation in an EU TSI project on cross-border information exchange and bilateral engagement with the UK's Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI). Earlier in her career, she spent a decade working on financial sector policy at the MoF, including financial stability, financial literacy, and transposition of the EU financial services acquis, and served as an Alternate Member of the Financial Services Committee (FSC) of the Council of the European Union. She has participated in numerous seminars and conferences on illicit finance and sanctions, including the International Training Course on UN Sanctions at the Geneva Graduate Institute and the executive programme "Making Sanctions Work: Political, Legal, and Economic Challenges of EU Restrictive Measures" at the Florence School of Transnational Governance (European University Institute). Ms. Themistocleous holds a BSc in Business Finance and Economics from the University of East Anglia (UK) and a Master's degree in Public Sector Management from the Cyprus International Institute of Management (CIIM), where she received the Director's Prize for her final project on improving the business environment for foreign direct investment (FDI) in Cyprus.
Kleanthis Ioannides
Kleanthis Ioannides, Head of Directorate AML, Central Bank of Cyprus Single Common Representative for Cyprus in AMLA
Adam Reeves
Adam A. Reeves is an Assistant United States Attorney at the United States Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of California in San Francisco. He is currently on a two-year detail to the Office of Overseas Prosecutorial, Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT) serving as the Mediterranean Resident Legal Advisor in Cyprus and Malta. Mr. Reeves joined the United States Department of Justice in 2002 and has worked in the United States Attorney’s Office since 2007. At the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he has served as First Assistant and Chief of the Securities Fraud Section among other supervisory positions. In a twenty-five-year career as a white-collar prosecutor, Mr. Reeves has investigated, prosecuted, and tried a wide variety of financial crimes including securities fraud, bank fraud, insider trading, trade secret, FCPA and other complex fraud cases. Prior to joining the Department of Justice, Mr. Reeves was an Assistant District Attorney at the New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney’s Office for over six years. He is a former partner of Anderson, Kill & Olick in New York and a graduate of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and New York University Law School in New York.
Tim Tyler
Tim is Vice President of the International Compliance Association. Before joining the ICA, he held senior roles across UK regulation and law enforcement spanning more than thirty years, including the Gambling Commission (GC), police, and the National Crime Agency (NCA). Among these roles, he: Led for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing at the GC Headed the Proceeds of Crime Operational Command within the NCA, focusing on international financial investigation, asset recovery and money laundering Oversaw the UK's INTERPOL, EUROPOL and Schengen national central bureaus Partnered the Serious Fraud Office, FBI, the DEA and 6 other federal and national agencies across the world in the disruption of complex fraud, corruption and money laundering
Yehuda Shaffer
Yehuda is today, and since 2018, an independent consultant after retiring from 30 years of service in the Israeli Government pursuing a legal career specializing in financial crime issues, combined with extensive international experience in applying of the FATF standards. He was the founder and head of the Israeli FIU (financial intelligence unit) and served as the deputy state attorney (financial crime) in the Israeli prosecution service. Yehuda has participated in several AML/CFT mutual evaluations, and is a regular trainer in the FATF evaluator courses. Yehuda has provided assistance in several jurisdictions, on various, operational and legal issues regarding ML TF and sanctions, Moneyval and FATF evaluations, conducting risk assessments, compliance by financial institutions, and training of FIUs supervisors investigators prosecutors and judges.
Che Sidanius
Che Sidanius is the Global Head of Financial Crime & Industry Affairs at LSEG Risk Intelligence, where he spearheads initiatives to strengthen the global fight against financial crime. In this role, he leads regulatory engagement and industry-wide programs designed to deliver impactful solutions and drive best practices across the financial ecosystem. He is also the founder of the Global Coalition to Fight Financial Crime, established in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and Europol, uniting public and private stakeholders to combat illicit finance on a global scale. Previously, he served as Senior Advisor to the Bank of England’s Financial Stability Directorate and as a Senior Supervisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he played a pivotal role during the 2007–09 Financial Crisis—a contribution recognized with the Presidential Award for Excellence. Under his leadership, LSEG’s Risk Intelligence business (formerly Refinitiv) earned the prestigious Impact Company of the Year Awards for 2 years, reflecting his commitment to innovation and industry impact. Che holds a Master’s in International Affairs from the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and a Bachelor’s in Political Science from UC Berkeley. linkedin.com/in/chesidanius
Nicola Passariello
Nicola Passariello is a senior financial crime prevention expert with over 25 years of international experience across financial institutions, corporates, and government authorities. A recognized specialist in sanctions compliance, sanctions evasion techniques, money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud, and corruption, Nicola advises global stakeholders on regulatory expectations, risk assessment, and operational effectiveness. Nicola has collaborated with the Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) of the U.S. Department of State, contributing to international sanctions capacity building initiatives that support both public and private sector institutions in strengthening compliance frameworks and countering evasion networks. He currently serves as a Board Member of the Italy Chapter of ACAMS, where he supports industry-wide professional standards and thought leadership in financial crime compliance. Nicola holds an Executive MBA from ESCP Europe (France), a postgraduate qualification in Financial Crime Prevention from the Alliance Manchester Business School (UK) / International Compliance Association (ICA), and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University Federico II (Italy).
Marios Skandalis
Marios Skandalis is a senior financial sector executive with extensive experience both in the local as well as international markets. He is a Fellow member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (UK), a licensed member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (USA) and a Fellow member of the Chartered Governance Institute – ICSA (UK). He is also a Fellow member of the International Compliance Association (UK) and a professional member of the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (USA). Today, he is the Director General of the Association of Cyprus Banks (ACB) and an Executive Committee member of the European Banking Federation (EBF). His professional career commenced in 1995 when he served as an Audit Supervisor and a Senior Management Consultant with Ernst & Young in the South-Eastern European region. In year 2000 he moved to the Bank of Cyprus Group and took the post of Chief Financial Officer of the General Insurance of Cyprus for over a decade. He then took the post of Manager for the Organization of the Bank’s Overseas Operations until 2013 when he was appointed as Legal Representative and head of the Bank of Cyprus’ operations in Greece. He then served for nearly 12 years, as the Chief Compliance officer of the Bank of Cyprus Group, with a significant contribution to the transformation of the Bank and the overall Cyprus’ banking sector. Mr Skandalis is a founder member and the Honorary President of the Cyprus Compliance Association (CCA), as well as a Board member of the Global Practitioner Advisory Board of the International Compliance Association (ICA – UK). He is the former President of the Cyprus Integrity Forum (CIF), the largest non-governmental organization in Cyprus for combatting corruption and promoting transparency, as well as the former Vice-President of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (Cyprus). Mr Skandalis has served as the President of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Cyprus (ICPAC) and as the Executive Vice-President and founder member of Transparency International (Cyprus). He is an active anti-fraud/corruption, compliance and corporate governance professional and chairs or participates as keynote speaker to related international conferences/forums in Europe, Asia and the USA. Mr Skandalis is the winner of the 2016 Banker of the Year Award – Cyprus by the AI Magazine in the United Kingdom. He is also the winner of the 2017 American Academy Nicosia Alumni Achievement Award in recognition of his remarkable success and achievements in his chosen career of compliance, corporate governance and anti-financial crime. Moreover, he is the international silver award winner of “Best Compliance Team”, by the International Compliance Association (UK) for 2022. Finally, he is the winner of the 2024 GOLD “Best Compliance Team – Greek’s Banking & Financial Sector” and the 2024 PLATINUM “Best Compliance Team – All Sectors of the Greek Economy” awards, by the Association of Compliance Officers in Greece.
Kieron Vaughan
Keiron is a specialist financial investigator and leader, he has served with the Metropolitan Police, City of London Police, and National Crime Agency. While leading economic crime teams at City of London Police, he secured the largest cash forfeiture in UK policing history, achieving the forfeiture of €34 million from a UK-based solicitors' firm. Kieron is currently the Regional Responsible Officer for terrorist financing and brings extensive experience in financial crime, money laundering, counter-terrorism finance, and complex investigations.
John Price
Detective Sergeant John is currently responsible for setting the strategic response to Terrorist Financing and Terrorist Use of Information and Communications Technology at the UK Border and the delivery of disruptive effects against a range of national security risks. He has extensive experience in digital forensic and online investigations in Border Policing, he has overseen the seizure of millions of pounds worth of cash and valuable commodities and led on ensuring UK Border presents a hostile operating environment for those financing Terrorism.
George Apostolides
George Apostolides is the Deputy Chief Compliance Officer and Anti Money Laundering Compliance Officer at Eurobank Ltd. George has extensive experience around Banking for Anti Money Laundering and combating Terrorism Financing, Implementation of Financial Sanction Programs and Regulatory Compliance. He holds the professional qualification of a Charter Accountant (ICAEW) as well as specialized certifications around Compliance. He is currently a member of the Steering Committee of the Cyprus Public Private Partnership and has extensive interactions with Regulators as well as the Private sector for the effective application of AML/CFT/Financial Sanctions requirements. Prior to his career as a Compliance Officer, George was involved in Audit and Assurance holding a senior position in the Internal Audit Department of Eurobank Cyprus and as an External Auditor for a Big4 firm.
Christophoros Stavrinos
Christophoros Stavrinos holds the position of Counsel of the Republic at the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Republic of Cyprus (MOKAS). Christophoros is a graduate of the English School, Nicosia. He studied Law at the University of Surrey (LLB Hons) and holds a Master of Laws (LLM) from Durham University. He was admitted to the Cyprus Bar Association in 2016 after successfully completing the Cyprus Bar examinations. He practiced as an advocate in the private sector, between 2017-2021, with an emphasis in civil and criminal litigation. From 2021 until 2024 he worked as an Officer at the Service of the Commission for the Protection of Competition of the Republic of Cyprus, in the Antitrust Department. From April 2024 until today Christophoros holds the position of Counsel of the Republic at MOKAS and is involved in applications in Court for the obtaining of Freezing Orders, in the aiding of the Prosecution in obtaining Confiscation Orders and in the registration and enforcement of foreign Freezing and Confiscation Orders.
Theodoros Stavrou
Theodoros Stavrou, Chair of Cyprus Compliance Association, is a holder of degree in Management from the Henley Management College of London. He is also a holder of a Master in Business Administration (MBA) and a civil engineering degree. He is an Accredited AML Specialist (CAMS) as well as a Certified Risk Management Specialist in Russia Sanctions by K2 Integrity. In 2001 he joined MOKAS, the FIU of Cyprus as an Investigator on Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing cases. Apart from his main duties as investigator and throughout the 17 years of Mr. Stavrou in MOKAS he was also the representative of Cyprus in different organisations like Europol, the MONEYVAL committee of the Council of Europe, FIU.net and others. Since 2017 He is working in the banking Sector as Chief of Compliance of Société Générale Bank Cyprus responsible for the AML/CFT/Sanctions and Regulatory compliance program of the Bank.
Andrea Moundi Savvides
Andrea Moundi Savvides is a lawyer and an international governance, risk and compliance leader with extensive experience advising boards, senior executives and regulated businesses across multiple jurisdictions. Andrea is the former Chair and Founding Member of the Cyprus Compliance Association and serves on the AML & Sanctions and Anti-Corruption Committees of the Cyprus Bar Association. She also represents Cyprus in international standard-setting initiatives through the ISO Anti-Money Laundering drafting committee. She previously served as Global Director of Risk & Compliance at Harneys, where she led the firm's global compliance function across ten jurisdictions. Her areas of expertise include corporate governance, financial crime, AML/CFT, sanctions, regulatory strategy and AI governance.
