WASHINGTON – The Justice Department announced Wednesday that a working group has been set up to prosecute billionaire oligarchs who helped President Vladimir Putin in his invasion of Ukraine as part of a U.S. effort to confiscate and freeze the assets of those who violated sanctions. .
The task force will pool the resources of various federal agencies to enforce the large-scale economic measures imposed by the United States as Russia continues its unprovoked attack on Ukraine.
“We will not leave a stone unturned in our efforts to investigate, arrest and prosecute those whose criminal activities allow the Russian government to continue this unjust war,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement.
The working group will be overseen by Lisa O. Monaco, Deputy Prosecutor General. Andrew S. Adams, a veteran corruption prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, will lead day-to-day operations, according to a number of people informed of his new role who spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal his name.
The working group’s announcement came as the Biden administration prepared a new package of sanctions against more Russian oligarchs, according to a source familiar with the plans. And this was followed by a warning to President Biden’s oligarchs in his statement on the state of the Union on Tuesday night, in which he declared that the administration was “joining European allies to find and confiscate their yachts, luxury apartments, private jets.”
It is not clear how successful the Ministry of Justice will be in prosecuting wealthy Russians, but the ministry usually sets up working groups to try to highlight its priorities and encourage prosecutors to file lawsuits.
“Catastrophic events, such as 9/11 or the invasion of Ukraine, often force the government to take stock of its full range of implementation tools to address a single threat to international security,” said David H. Laufman, a partner at Wiggin and Dana, who oversaw the implementation of US sanctions laws as an employee of the Department of Justice during the Obama and Trump administrations. “That’s what the Biden administration is doing here.”
The creation of the team, called Task Force KleptoCapture, adds to a number of actions Western leaders have taken in recent days in an attempt to undermine Mr Putin and Russia’s politically connected elite, who are believed to have close ties to him. By imposing potentially crippling sanctions on Russian financial institutions and freezing trillions of dollars in assets controlled by Moscow and oligarchs, the United States and its allies hope to force Putin to withdraw from Ukraine.
The Biden administration has punished several Russian companies, including the country’s major development and military banks, one of its state funds and a subsidiary of state-controlled energy giant Gazprom. She tried to freeze Mr Putin’s assets, as well as those of his foreign minister, Sergei V. Lavrov, and other Russian national security officials. It has also restricted purchases of Russian government bonds, banned some Russian banks from accessing Western financial markets and cut off Russia’s access to certain foreign technology products.
The European Union and Britain have taken similar sanctions and also banned the export of some military goods to Russia. But Russia has moved forward with pressure from attacks on Ukraine.
The creation of the task force reflects tight control over Russian oligarchs, many of whom have amassed wealth because of their ties to Mr Putin. Although they may not be directly involved in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they are enabling Mr Putin by helping him conceal his own assets and stay in power.
Russian oligarchs have invested their wealth in assets around the world, and their ties to Mr Putin have helped them gain influence and connections in the worlds of fine arts, real estate, Wall Street and Silicon Valley.
Some Russian elites are reportedly in a hurry to sell their assets to protect them from confiscation, possibly pending sanctions. One of the country’s most famous oligarchs, Roman Abramovich, said on Wednesday that he would sell Chelsea, the Premier League football team.
Other oligarchs with ties to Moscow have hired American lobbyists and law firms in white shoes to try to weaken U.S. sanctions laws such as the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 measure that initially imposed sanctions on some Russian government officials in response to violations. of human rights.
The war between Russia and Ukraine: key things you need to know
One city has been captured. Russian troops gained control of Kherson, the first Ukrainian city to be conquered during the war. Overtaking Kherson is important because it allows the Russians to control most of Ukraine’s southern coast and push west toward the city of Odessa.
While many American law and lobbying companies have stopped representing Russian legal entities, not all have. For example, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, one of the country’s largest law firms, appear to be working on lawsuits related to the 2016 election with Alfa Bank, which the United States sanctioned last week. The penalties against Alfa Bank were lighter than those imposed on some other Russian financial companies and did not require Skadden Arps to sever ties; the law firm did not respond to requests for comment.
Alfa Bank was founded by Ukrainian-Russian oligarch Mikhail Friedman, who was punished separately by the European Union this week, saying he was “named Russia’s best financier and helper in Putin’s inner circle.”
Mr Adams, who will lead the day-to-day operations of the task force, has experience in investigating Russian organized crime and recovering illegal assets. He joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan in 2013 and worked in the Department of Violence and Organized Crime before helping oversee money laundering investigations.
He has been in charge of the Department of Money Laundering and Transnational Criminal Enterprises since 2018. Under his leadership, the department has successfully prosecuted cases involving an Armenian criminal organization, a bribery and money laundering scheme involving Brazilian civil servants and a doping ring. horses, among others.
The working group will include prosecutors and investigators from the Ministry of Justice who have experience in enforcing laws on sanctions, export controls, corruption, asset confiscation, money laundering and taxes. And he will work with investigators from the IRS, the FBI, the Marshals Office, the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security and the Postal Inspection Service.
The task force will target people and companies trying to evade anti-money laundering laws, hide their identities from financial institutions and use cryptocurrencies to avoid sanctions and money laundering. The justice ministry said it would use confiscation of assets in civil and criminal cases to confiscate assets belonging to persons subject to sanctions.
The department said its work would complement that of the transatlantic task force announced last weekend to identify and confiscate the assets of punished Russians and companies around the world.
The reporting was contributed by Charlie Savage and Alan Rapeport from Washington and Rebecca Davis O’Brien and William K. Rashbaum from New York.