By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE closure of American airspace to Russian planes increases the likelihood that The Bahamas’ airspace will be used as an alternative route for Russian aircraft, according to former director of aviation Charles Beneby.

On the other hand, a move by The Bahamas to limit Russian access to its financial system will have no impact because sanctions have already been implemented by the correspondent banking institutions on which this country is reliant, according to Gowon Bowe, chief executive officer of the Fidelity Group of Companies.

The US Embassy has urged The Bahamas to limit Russia’s access to the Bahamian financial system and to restrict this country’s airspace to Russian aircrafts. That plea came after Russia invaded Ukraine in a move that has drawn condemnation from countries around the world, including The Bahamas.

The United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and others have begun sanctioning Russian oligarchs, freezing and seizing their assets in response to Russia’s invasion, which they insist was unprovoked.

While Russian involvement in the local financial system is already low, according to Mr Bowe, Russian planes may now see The Bahamas’ airspace as an opportunity after the US and Canada closed their territory to them.

“When Russian planes are going into Cuba, which they often do,” Mr Beneby said, “they could very well fly in our airspace. In normal times, we do get a fair amount of European aircraft that fly through what has now been established as Bahamian territorial airspace.

“Theoretically, the route is westbound, depending on what the wind is doing, over Greenland, and then turning down. But if the Americans are shutting their airspace to them, there’s really no place to go. If they want to go to Havana or some place in Cuba, they would have to take a more easterly route which would, I think, definitely put them in our airspace.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if an Aeroflot plane popped up, I’ve seen it all the time in the night-time and that’s the best time for those kinds of flights to operate,” Mr Beneby said.

Mr Bowe, meanwhile, said the government could get details about the involvement of Russian oligarchs in the country’s financial system if it chooses to.

“The government would have details relative to it because of our new Register of Beneficial Owners law, the ROBO Act, and therefore all of the financial corporate service providers will have, in the secure database, that information,” he said.

“As it relates to them being a major player in our financial service system, they traditionally have not (been)... particularly the Russian oligarchs because a lot of their wealth has been in the various Russian monopolies, the oil industries, etc. A lot of them have tended to have their wealth in the major Western territories, the UK, the US and they have started buying assets like football clubs.

“Most of the Bahamian financial system is wealth management so from that perspective it would be looking more into asset wealth so wherever they domiciled their companies.

“Certainly as it relates to the IBCs and trusts and elements of that nature there isn’t any significant concentration that has been observed, certainly not since the Russian oligarchs became what they are known as in the early 2000s. Since that time, are there Russian assets here? I’m pretty certain there will be because there would be a number of them in general. Are they the oligarchs that have been actually sanctioned? I don’t know,” Mr Bowe said.

Mr Bowe said Bahamian banks, both private and commercial ones, rely on bank systems based out of the US, UK, Canada and others, countries that have already sanctioned Russian oligarchs.

“All of our correspondent banks have already advised that there will be no significant transactions facilitated or enabled and so The Bahamas financial system isn’t one that I will say drives other systems, we rely on other systems so the truth of the matter is once the US, Canada and the UK have imposed sanctions, it limits the ability to move the funds and The Bahamas will simply be compliant with that,” Mr Bowe said.

“What I would say is while the UN Security Council has been slow in terms of the multilateral sanctions, the US, Canada and the UK, Australia and others, the European Union have blocked and issued the sanctions and because The Bahamas does not work outside of those traditional systems, the reality is those sanctions have already been imposed. The Bahamas’ endorsement would be purely a show and tell as opposed to adding any punitive imposition on the Russian oligarchs.”

Last week, Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis said CARICOM is awaiting a decision from the United Nations Security Council before taking a position on whether member states should impose sanctions on Russia.

Mr Davis spoke from Belize, where he was attending CARICOM meetings.

He returned to the country on Friday.