About

Maria Kyrmizi Antoniou is a Senior Counsel of the Republic of Cyprus and for the last two years the Head of the Cyprus Financial Intelligence Unit – FIU Cyprus – MOKAS, with a long-standing experience in criminal Asset Recovery, freezing and confiscating illegal proceeds.

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.

Currently, she the Head of the Cyprus Delegation to the Moneyval Committee of the Council of Europe, where she also participated as a legal evaluator during Moneyval Evaluations.

In her capacity as the Head of the FIU, strongly supports initiatives of Public Private Partnership in order to address the continuously evolving methods of ML and the newly emerging threats.