$17bn of global assets linked to 35 Russians with alleged ties to Putin
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 alleged to have close ties to Vladimir Putin.
Today, the Guardian, working in a partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Süddeutsche Zeitung and other international news organisations, is unveiling the initial research in an ongoing project to track the wealth of Russia’s most powerful operators.
The Russian asset tracker project will start by focusing on a list of 35 men and women named last year as Putin’s alleged enablers by the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny. It will record assets outside Russia where the reporting partners have seen evidence connecting them to these individuals.
Navalny’s organisation wrote to western governments requesting the names on its list be considered for sanctions and all but two have since been blacklisted by either the US, EU, UK or Canada.
The names include four of the wealthiest oligarchs, plus heads of state-controlled companies, prominent broadcasters, spy agency chiefs, ministers, political advisers and regional governors. They have been read out in the US Congress by lawmakers seeking tougher penalties for the Russian elite and in the UK parliament by the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson, Layla Moran.
Moran told the Commons: “Putin’s cronies must be subject to the strongest possible sanctions now, because it is through them that Putin and his inner circle keep their wealth. If we go after his associates, we go after him. Actually, we are rather uniquely placed to do so, because they choose London. They live here: it is
Read more on theguardian.com
