More than $17bn (£13bn) in 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 accused to have close ties to Vladimir Putin .
Today the Guardian, in collaboration with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and other international news organizations, unveils the first research of an ongoing project to track the wealth of Russia’s most powerful operators.
Russian Asset Tracker GraphicGraphic
The Russian asset tracker project is initially focusing on a list of 35 men and women named by jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny last year as Putin’s alleged enablers. It will capture assets outside of Russia where the reporting partners have seen evidence linking them to those individuals.
Navalny’s organization wrote to western governments demanding that the names on her list be considered for sanctions, and all but one have since been blacklisted by either the US, EU, UK or Canada.
Russian asset tracker graphic
Names include four of the wealthiest oligarchs, as well as heads of state-controlled companies, prominent broadcasters, heads of spy agencies, ministers, political advisers and regional governors. They were read in the US Congress by lawmakers calling for tougher penalties for the Russian elite and in the UK Parliament by Liberal Democrat Foreign Policy Spokesperson Layla Moran.
Moran told the House of Commons: “Putin’s cronies must be subjected to the toughest sanctions now, because through them Putin and his inner circle keep their wealth. If we go after his companions, we go after him. Actually, we’re pretty uniquely positioned for that because they choose London. They live here: for them it’s ‘Londongrad’.”
Clockwise from left: Businessmen Roman Abramovich, Alisher Usmanov, Oleg Deripaska and Igor Shuvalov are all featured in the Russian Asset Tracker. Photo: Reuters/PAThe Russian asset tracker has identified more than half a billion dollars worth of UK real estate or land linked through corporations, trusts or relatives to four prominent figures on Navalny’s list: Roman Abramovich, Alisher Usmanov, Oleg Deripaska and Igor Shuvalov . The Guardian will report on these findings in the coming days.
Research so far has revealed indications that the names are linked to more than 145 assets consisting of 35 villas, 43 apartments and 27 other properties, most of them dating from 2020 to date. Seven yachts, plus 11 private jets and helicopters totaling $2 billion were linked to just six people.
Some of the assets in the tracker are in the public domain – including Deripaska’s mansion in Belgrave Square, central London, which was taken over by squatters last week, as well as superyachts Dilbar, Lena and Amore Vero, linked to oligarchs Usmanov, Gennady, Timchenko and Igor Sechin.
Oleg Deripaska’s £25million London mansion was taken over by protesters last week. Photo: Graeme Robertson/The GuardianOther possessions went largely unnoticed, or sometimes existed in almost total secrecy. Last month, the US Treasury Department highlighted the problems of opaque ownership, stating, “Sanctioned oligarchs and powerful Russian elites have used family members to move assets and hide their immense wealth.”
Outside the UK, Russian asset tracker has revealed the following:
Twenty-six assets are apparently linked to Deripaska, who is said to be Putin’s favorite industrialist. These include billions of dollars in shares, a hotel in the Austrian Alps, a superyacht, a 60-meter support ship with helipad and luxury properties in London, Paris, Washington DC and New York, and four villas in Sardinia.
Two private jets — a $65 million Gulfstream G650 and a Bombardier Global Express — flew with Shuvalov, Russia’s former first deputy prime minister and current chairman of the state development company. Shuvalov is also associated with three luxury properties in Salzkammergut (Austria), Tuscany (Italy) and Dubai (United Arab Emirates) totaling approximately $35 million.
Real estate holding companies linked to the families of Nikolay Tokarev, chairman of the state-controlled pipeline company Transneft, as well as the president’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov. The Tokarev Societies appear to own luxury real estate on the Croatian island of Lošinj, a well-known hotspot for wealthy Russians, while the Peskov firm is linked to an expensive apartment in Paris.
The superyacht Amore Vero, said to be owned by Rosneft boss Igor Sechin, is moored in La Ciotat port near Marseille. Photo: Albert Gea/ReutersMany of the lesser-known assets are held through shell companies based in offshore no-go areas and trust funds, making them difficult to trace. Others are owned by relatives or associates of those on the Navalny list, raising questions about the origin of the funds used to acquire those assets.
They were verified using evidence from publicly available sources, data from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ offshore leaks databases, FinCEN files containing reports of suspicious banking transactions, and human intelligence sources.
The tracker serves as a snapshot and includes assets only where reporters have seen documentary evidence or other reliable information linking them to the Navalny 35. Some holdings widely associated with certain oligarchs have yet to be confirmed.
Abramovich, Tokarev, Peskov and Shuvalov have yet to respond to requests for comment.
A spokesman for Deripaska said: “It is unclear how the publication of this type of ‘assessment register’ could serve the public interest. Unless, of course, by ‘public interest’ you mean encouraging squatters to squat on private property, as they did at a London house belonging to Mr Deripaska’s relatives.
“All property and fortune he owns was acquired through fair means. The ongoing media frenzy, unfortunate as it is, certainly gives no one the right to call Mr. Deripaska a kleptocrate. The Russian witch-hunt to which Mr. Deripaska fell victim is driven solely by political motives.”
A spokesman for Usmanov added: “All of Mr. Usmanov’s capital was built through successful, sometimes risky, investments as well as effective management of his wealth, which is the essence of the business. Therefore, to describe the source of his money as “non-transparent” is fundamentally wrong and damages Mr. Usmanov’s reputation as an honest businessman and philanthropist.”