It is “the most comprehensive public database of oligarch assets to date,” according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, which partnered with 27 media outlets to launch the tracker. The tool is interactive and displays “the vast wealth outside of Russia held by oligarchs and key figures close” to the Russian president.
The investigation unearthed more than 150 assets worth about $17 billion, including real estate, private jets, company shares, yachts, mansions and more. Journalists discovered these assets by looking through land books, corporate registries and offshore leaks.
“Russia under Vladimir Putin has been controlled by a very small group of people, collaborators who keep him in power, benefiting from his patronage system at the expense of the Russian people,” OCCRP publisher Drew Sullivan said in a press release.
This system has been tested again since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, as Western governments sought to freeze Putin’s and the oligarchs’ foreign assets and prevent their movement. This goal has two aspects: the sanctions act as a punishment for Russia’s ruling class and as a cudgel to force Putin to back down.
The idea was conceived in February, just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to The Guardian, which is part of the project. The project started with “a list of 35 people identified last year by jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny as ‘key collaborators and beneficiaries of the Kremlin’s kleptocracy’.”
Just three weeks after the invasion, “27 of these individuals are subject to sanctions in the US and Europe. Seven more are blacklisted in Canada.
One of the people on this list of 35 is Roman Abramovich, a 55-year-old man who is worth an estimated $13.5 billion. Despite not being hit by UK sanctions and denying links to Putin, Abramovich recently announced that he was selling his Chelsea football club, which he acquired in 2003. an estate on the posh French Riviera, a Bombardier private jet, and several properties scattered across London. The database also includes businessman Alisher Usmanov, Igor Sechin (CEO of Russian oil giant Rosneft) and Oleg Deripaska, a billionaire who made his fortune in the aluminum business. about Credit Suisse, which detailed clients that included criminals, alleged human rights abusers, and individuals subject to sanctions. The Swiss bank retracted its report.