Crime, Suspicion of Foreigners Trail Russians to Cyprus : Mediterranean: Isle benefits from the misery and instability, attracting capital and moneyed refugees.

Even before the kidnaping of his two sons, Roman Minayev was fed up with Moscow thuggery. He paid the ransom, packed up his family and moved to Cyprus six months ago.

The trouble is, he may not have gotten away from Russian gangsters. At least that is a growing suspicion among Cypriots who find their serene Mediterranean island being inundated by Russians.

Cyprus traditionally benefits from the misery and instability around it, attracting capital and moneyed refugees from hot spots in the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. The Russians, however, are viewed as a mixed blessing.

The fuss is not over people like Minayev, a Ukrainian former seaman who started a construction business near Moscow. He lives quietly in the beach resort of Paphos, running his company by fax and an occasional three-hour flight to the Russian capital.

“I feel safe here,” he said in his living room while playing a videotaped violin recital by his 11-year-old son.

The problem is over Russians and other former Soviets, like the dozen deported recently on suspicion of extortion, and over allegations of money laundering here by Russian mobsters.

Newspapers estimate up to 2,000 Russian trading companies, banks and other businesses have set up shop in Cyprus, taking advantage of tax breaks designed to lure foreign enterprise.

In addition, Russia’s new rich flock to the island as tourists and spend lavishly. One of them, Vladimir Korolev of Moscow, ran his eyes over the colorfully garbed crowd at the airport and said with amazement: “It seems almost every other person is Russian.”

They pay cash for gold watches, jewelry and satellite dishes, delighting the merchants. Travel agents say the Russians are beginning to make up for penny-pinching Britons, who account for the bulk of visitors to the former colony.

The forecast of 2 million tourists this year includes 80,000 Russians, and not all Cypriots are thrilled.

“Twenty years ago, you would never have dreamed of anything like this: Russian Mafia, crime and all,” said Andie Christophorou, a public relations representative.

Leonid Nikolov, an ethnic Greek electronics repairman from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, said Cypriots had withdrawn the red carpet they rolled out when he arrived two years ago.

“Nowadays,” he said, “when I go into the home of a Cypriot to do some work and they ask me if I’m Russian, and I say, ‘Sort of,’ they start complaining that all Russians are Mafiosi.”

News reports that Russian criminals use Cyprus to launder billions of dirty rubles struck a nerve at the Central Bank, which last year indignantly denied allegations that the island was a sanctions-busting clearinghouse for Serbia.

“If only a fraction of the reports on Cyprus were true, then the island would be the world’s center of crime, depravity and unscrupulous dealings. . . . This is patently absurd,” bank spokesman George Georgiou said.

In August, the Independent newspaper in London quoted Cypriot bankers it did not identify as voicing suspicions that much of the Russian money deposited on the island was from Moscow criminal gangs and illegal Middle Eastern arms dealers.

Georgiou said it was impossible to launder criminal profits in Cyprus because of government restrictions that include mandatory reporting of bank transactions over $10,000.