A Russian embassy employee found dead in Nicosia last week had been posting online about losing money in a failed Crimea property deal, Russian media reported, as Cyprus police await toxicology results with no access to the death scene.
Anton Panov, 47, described as a cryptographer, was found dead in his office by an unnamed embassy employee. Russian embassy staff handed over his body to police in the courtyard and refused them entry, stating verbally he had taken his own life and left a note.
State pathologist Angeliki Papetta conducted an autopsy on 12 January without an embassy representative present. The findings showed “strangulation by ligature” with no injuries or bruises, Cypriot media reported. Police now await toxicology results that take between one and eight months.
Russian security and criminal affairs blog VChK-OGPU linked Panov’s death to a property fraud. Panov and his wife allegedly paid a large deposit for a property under construction in Crimea by a known Russian construction company, but the project never proceeded, and the company failed to deliver units by 2018 as contracted.
The construction company owner was detained in 2019 in a pre-trial fraud investigation. The blog claimed Panov recently wrote online that “we have been robbed” and “must publish on TV stations”.
Current Time TV, citing Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta and other media, reported that Panov worked at a Scientific and Technical Centre in 2002 and 2023. The centre reported directly to the FSB in the early 2000s and developed confidential communications equipment and information security.
The centre handled confidentiality of government communications and connected to the Foreign Intelligence Service, Federal Tax Service, Federal Service for Technical and Export Control, and Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Panov worked for the Russian Foreign Ministry from at least 2011. After his transfer, he moved to Sosenskoye village near Moscow’s Yasenevo area, about ten minutes by car from SVR headquarters, journalists noted.
The death continues to fuel speculation in Russian media one week after Panov was found.
