The United States has begun an aggressive new push to hurt Russia’s economy, and especially its oligarchy, with the intention of thwarting the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
From the Treasury Department to the Justice Department, US officials will focus efforts to legally liquidate the assets of Russian oligarchs, expand financial penalties on those who facilitate sanctions evasion, and close loopholes in the law. Let’s do away with the scams that allow oligarchs to use shell companies. Move through the American financial system.
Andrew Adams, head of the kleptocapture task force designed to enforce economic sanctions within the US imposed on Russia and its billionaires, told The Associated Press that the group is prioritizing its efforts to identify people who may be working with the Russians. avoid sanctions and violate export controls.
“These illegal procurement networks will continue to consume an increasing amount of our bandwidth,” said Adams, who also serves as acting deputy assistant attorney general.
So far, more than $58 billion of Russians’ assets have been blocked or frozen around the world, according to a Treasury Department report last week. It includes two luxury yachts in San Diego and Fiji valued at $300 million each, and six New York and Florida properties valued at $75 million each owned by acknowledged oligarch Victor Vekselberg.
The US has begun an effort to punish the oligarch’s associates and money managers – in Vekselberg’s case, a federal court in New York convicted Vladimir Voronchenko after he helped maintain Vekselberg’s assets. He was charged in February with conspiring to violate and evade US sanctions.
The case was coordinated through a kleptocapture group.
“I think it can be quite effective to sanction facilitators,” Adams said, calling them “professional ban evasion brokers.”
A February study led by researchers at Dartmouth University showed that targeting a few prominent wealth managers would do far more damage to Russia than sanctioning individual oligarchs.
Other efforts to damage the Russian economy would come from efforts to liquidate yachts and other property owned by Russian oligarchs and the Kremlin, turning them into cash to benefit Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has long called for the transfer of Russian assets to Ukraine, and former Biden administration official Dalip Singh told the Senate Banking Committee on February 28 that the US freeze of billions of Russian assets was “something That’s what we should be pursuing.” ,
Singh suggested that the US “should use the reserves frozen at the New York Fed, transfer them to Ukraine and allow them to be held as collateral to raise funds.” While he was National Security Advisor for International Economics, he ran the White House’s Russia sanctions program.
Adams said the kleptocapture task force is pursuing efforts by the Russians to sell yachts and other property whose owners have been blocked from accessing the seized property, despite the legal difficulties of turning the property over to the government for the benefit of Ukraine. Can take and sell.
He insisted that America would operate under the rule of law. “What this means is that we will not fully seize assets through judicial processes and begin seizing them without a legal basis,” Adams said.
He said the task force “has had success working with Congress and working with people around the executive branch to get authorization to transfer some of the seized money to the State Department.”
The Treasury Department said Thursday that the government is “paving the way” for $5.4 million in seized money to be sent as foreign aid to Ukraine.
In addition, strengthening laws that serve as loopholes for those who break restrictions will also be a priority across federal departments, officials say.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, under Treasury, is expected to implement rules to address the use of the US real estate market for money laundering, including a requirement to disclose the true ownership of real estate.
Steven Tian, director of research at Yale’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute, which tracks companies’ disengagement from Russia, said the new real estate rule is long overdue.
“I would like to point out that this is not unique to only the Russian oligarchs. As you know, the real estate market in the United States uses shell companies, period,” Tian said.
Erica Hanichak, director of government affairs at the FACT Coalition, a nonprofit that promotes corporate transparency, urged the administration to extend the rule until the end of March, when the U.S. is meeting with the governments of Costa Rica, the Netherlands, Co-hosts the second summit for , South Korea and Zambia.
“We see this as an opportunity for the United States to demonstrate leadership in not only addressing corrupt practices abroad, but looking in our own backyard and plugging the loopholes in our systems.” who promote corruption at the international level,” he said.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)