The US Department of Justice’s special task force tasked with targeting Russian oligarchs’ assets has found evidence of attempts to circumvent sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine or the transfer of assets before possible sanctions were imposed today. .
Andrew Adams, a veteran prosecutor chosen to lead the ministry’s new KleptoCapture strike team last month, told Reuters in an interview that the level of co-operation between countries in investigating oligarchs’ illegal profits had reached “unprecedented levels”. level “in the wake of Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
“There are ongoing efforts – some of which have been published – to transfer, for example, movable property in the form of yachts, airplanes … to jurisdictions where, I think, people think it would be more difficult to investigate and more “difficult to freeze (including property),” Adams said.
The task force is aimed at putting pressure on the finances of Russian oligarchs in a bid to force President Vladimir Putin to end his military offensive in Ukraine.
The unit’s name is a game with the word “kleptocracy”, a reference to corrupt officials who abuse power to amass wealth. The strike unit includes prosecutors, investigators and analysts from several federal agencies.
The United States and its allies have imposed a series of sanctions in recent weeks targeting Putin, many of his wealthy friends and dozens of Russian companies and government agencies, some of whom have been accused of spreading misinformation aimed at destabilizing the Ukrainian government.
“Tracing the assets of oligarchs is often difficult because they are hidden behind ‘successive levels of’ shell company ‘scattered around the world,” Adams said.
U.S. prosecutors are receiving information from sites that were previously considered safe havens, Adams said.
“Especially in the current context and the current climate … the level of common sense of purpose I think is at the highest level of all time and from my point of view it looks like a huge turnaround in terms of common ground,” Adams added.
He declined to provide details of specific jurisdictions that provided information to the panel or to name specific individuals under investigation.
He added that targeting assets abroad was an important part of the plant’s work, adding that the United States had not been an attractive country for supporters of the Russian government since about 2014 due to a series of sanctions on annexation of Crimea. from Moscow from Ukraine.
“The United States was not a friendly place to invest your money as an oligarch,” Adams said. “The most ostentatious, most obvious types of assets are not in the US. “They exist in parts of the world where it was easier to operate until relatively recently.”
Adams cited a 2019 case in which U.S. authorities seized Wise Honest, a North Korean cargo ship accused of smuggling coal in violation of U.S. sanctions, even though the ship was originally off U.S. soil, as a “manual” for some from the future affairs of the special strike unit.
Meanwhile, some European countries have already found and confiscated the yachts of wealthy Russian businessmen.
In Spain, the government temporarily confiscated the $ 140 million Superyacht Valerie, which is linked to Sergei Tsemezov, a former KGB officer who leads the state-owned Rostec group.
French and Italian authorities also seized several ships last month, including one of Rosneft’s bosses, Ignohe Sechin, in a port on the French Riviera, and another owned by Russian billionaire Andrei Igorevich Melnichenko in Livrichenko Melnichenko.
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