More than $17bn (£13bn) of global assets, including offshore bank accounts, yachts, private jets and luxury properties in London, Tuscany and the French Riviera, have been linked to 35 oligarchs and Russian officials believed to have close ties to Vladimir Putin. .
Today, The Guardian, in partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, the Süddeutsche Zeitung and other international news organizations, presents the first study of an ongoing project to track the wealth of Russia’s most powerful operators.
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The Russian asset tracing project will begin by examining a list of 35 men and women identified last year by imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny as alleged Putin accomplices. It will register assets outside of Russia if accountability partners have seen evidence of their connection to these individuals.
Navalny’s organization has asked Western governments to consider names on its list for sanctions, and since then all but two have been blacklisted by the US, EU, UK or Canada.
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Among them are the four richest oligarchs, as well as heads of state companies, prominent broadcasters, heads of intelligence agencies, ministers, political advisers and regional governors. They were read out in the US Congress by lawmakers demanding tougher penalties for the Russian elite, and in the UK Parliament by the Liberal Democrats’ spokesperson for foreign affairs, Leila Moran.
Moran told the House of Commons: “Putin’s accomplices should now be subject to the most severe sanctions, because it is through them that Putin and his inner circle maintain their wealth. If we follow his accomplices, we will follow him. In fact, we have a unique opportunity to do this because they choose London. They live here: for them it is “Londongrad”.
Clockwise, from left to right: Businessmen Roman Abramovich, Alisher Usmanov, Oleg Deripaska and Igor Shuvalov appear on the Russian asset tracker. Photo: Reuters/PA..
A Russian asset tracker has identified more than half a billion dollars worth of British property or land linked through companies, trusts or relatives to the four leading figures on Navalny’s list: Roman Abramovich, Alisher Usmanov, Oleg Deripaska and Igor Shuvalov. . The Guardian will report these findings in the coming days.
So far, the study has uncovered evidence, most of which dates from 2020 to the present, that the names are associated with more than 145 assets, consisting of 35 mansions, 43 apartments and 27 other properties. Seven yachts, as well as 11 private jets and helicopters totaling $2 billion, were found to be linked to just six individuals.
Some of the assets in the tracker are in the public domain – including Deripaska’s Belgrave Square mansion in central London, which was taken over by squatters last week, and the Dilbar, Lena and Amore Vero superyachts linked to oligarchs Usmanov, Gennady Timchenko and Igor Sechin. respectively.
Last week, protesters took over Oleg Deripaska’s £25 million London mansion. Photograph: Graham Robertson/The GuardianOther properties have gone largely unnoticed or sometimes existed in near-total secrecy. Last month, the U.S. Treasury Department highlighted the problems of property opacity, saying: “Sanctioned oligarchs and powerful Russian elites have used family members to move assets and hide their vast wealth.”
Outside the UK, a Russian asset tracker found:
Twenty-six assets are apparently linked to Deripaska, who is considered Putin’s favorite industrialist. These include billions of dollars in shares, a hotel in the Austrian Alps, a superyacht, a 60-meter support vessel with a helipad and luxury properties in London, Paris, Washington and New York, as well as four villas in Sardinia.
Two private jets – a $65 million Gulfstream G650 and a Bombardier Global Express – have been linked to Shuvalov, Russia’s former first deputy prime minister and now chairman of the state development corporation. Shuvalov is also associated with three luxury properties worth about $35 million, located in the Salzkammergut, Austria, Tuscany in Italy and Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Holding companies associated with the families of Nikolai Tokarev, chairman of the state pipeline company Transneft, as well as presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov. Tokarev Companies It seems that he owns luxury real estate on the Croatian island of Lošinj, a famous haven for wealthy Russians, and Peskov’s firm is associated with an expensive Paris apartment.
Superyacht Amore Vero, owned by the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin, in the port of La Ciotat near Marseille. Photo: Albert Gea/ReutersMany of the lesser-known assets are held through shell companies based in offshore secret jurisdictions and trust funds, making them difficult to trace. Others are owned by relatives or associates of individuals on Navalny’s list, raising questions about the source of the funds used to acquire these assets.
They were verified using evidence from publicly available sources, data from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ offshore databases of leaks, FinCEN suspicious banking transaction report files, and intelligence sources.
The tracker serves as a snapshot of time and only includes assets where journalists have seen documentary evidence or other credible information linking them to Navalny 35. Some assets widely associated with certain oligarchs have yet to be confirmed.
Abramovich, Tokarev, Peskov and Shuvalov have not yet responded to requests for comment.
A spokesman for Deripaska said: “It is not clear how the publication of this kind of “list of assets” can serve the public interest. Unless, of course, by “public interest” you mean encouraging squatters to take over private property, as they did with the London home owned by Mr. Deripaska’s relatives.
“All the property and assets he owns were acquired in good faith. The ongoing media craziness, regrettably, certainly does not give anyone the right to call Mr. Deripaska a kleptocrat. The Russian witch-hunt that Mr. Deripaska fell victim to is purely politically motivated.”
Usmanov’s spokesman added: “Mr. Usmanov’s entire wealth has been built through successful, sometimes risky investments, as well as through the efficient management of his assets, which is the essence of the business. Therefore, the characterization of the source of his money as “opaque” is inherently incorrect and damages the reputation of Mr. Usmanov as an honest entrepreneur and philanthropist.”