The Department of Homeland Security has begun a search for planes, yachts, mansions and other U.S. belongings of Russians facing Ukraine-related sanctions.
Agents are looking for “shiny toys” that wealthy Russians on the sanctions list likely have hidden behind layers of shell companies, as well as their bank accounts and investments, said John Tobon, who heads the agency’s financial investigations division in Miami. The U.S. government has blacklisted 19 companies and 45 political and business leaders, including four it designated as members of Putin’s inner circle.
Any assets traced to blacklisted Russians will be frozen by the Treasury Department, which enforces sanctions, Tobon said. Agents from Homeland Security’s Foreign Corruption Investigations Group, including forensic accountants and intelligence analysts, are working on the case, along with other branches of the federal government, he said.
“This is the equivalent of the U.S. Treasury throwing up a bat signal -- it’s all hands on deck and here is your mission,” Tobon said. “The challenge comes to trying to find an asset that somebody is deliberately trying to hide.”
Freezing the assets could “translate quickly into political pressure” on Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Neil Shearing, chief emerging market economist for Capital Economics Ltd. in London.
“Russian oligarchs made money in Russia and enjoyed the fruits of that money in the West,” he said. “If you squeeze that, then it will create some kind of pain.”
Asked about the U.S. investigation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “Nobody informed us, but I don’t find these efforts surprising at all.”
Legal Restrictions
A Russian law adopted last year prohibits government officials and executives of state-owned companies from holding bank accounts or financial instruments abroad. They are allowed to own property outside Russia, provided they declare it and explain where the money for the purchase came from.
Russian oligarchs for years have shielded assets abroad in case they fall out of favor with Putin’s regime. While Putin has been urging businessmen to bring their money back home, a net $51 billion of Russian capital was removed from the country in the first quarter, the biggest quarterly outflow since 2008, according to data from the central bank.