WASHINGTON. On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced a task force to prosecute billionaire oligarchs who helped President Vladimir Putin during his invasion of Ukraine, as part of a United States effort to seize and freeze the assets of those who violate sanctions.
The Task Force will deploy resources from various federal agencies to enforce the wide-ranging economic measures imposed by the United States as Russia continues its unprovoked attack on Ukraine.
“We will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to investigate, arrest and prosecute those whose criminal acts allow the Russian government to continue this unjust war,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said.
The task force will be overseen by Lisa O. Monaco, Deputy Attorney General. Andrew S. Adams, an experienced corruption prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, will run day-to-day operations, according to several people briefed on his new role, who spoke on condition of anonymity and gave their name.
The announcement of the task force came after President Biden, in his address to the US Congress on Tuesday evening, drew the attention of Russian oligarchs by saying that the administration is “teaming with European allies to find and seize their yachts, their luxury apartments, their private own”. jet planes.”
It’s unclear how successful the Justice Department will be in prosecuting wealthy Russians, but the department usually creates ad hoc teams to emphasize its priorities and encourage prosecutors to file cases.
“Catastrophic events, such as the 9/11 attacks or the invasion of Ukraine, often prompt a government to review its entire suite of enforcement tools to address a single threat to international security,” said David H. Laufman, a partner at Wiggin and Dana who oversaw enforcement of U.S. sanctions laws. as a Justice Department official during the Obama and Trump administrations. “That’s what the Biden administration is doing here.”
The creation of a group called Task Force KleptoCapture adds to a series of actions taken by Western leaders in recent days in an attempt to undermine Mr. Putin and Russia’s political elite, who are believed to have close ties to him. By imposing potentially devastating sanctions on Russian financial institutions and freezing trillions of dollars of assets controlled by Moscow and the oligarchs, the United States and its allies are hoping to push Putin away from Ukraine.
The Biden administration has sanctioned several Russian entities, including the country’s major construction and military banks, one of its sovereign wealth funds, and a subsidiary of state-owned energy giant Gazprom. It tried to freeze the assets of Mr. Putin, as well as his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and other Russian national security officials. It also restricted the purchase of Russian sovereign bonds, barred some Russian banks from accessing Western financial markets, and cut off Russia’s access to certain foreign technology products.
The European Union and the United Kingdom have taken similar punitive measures, as well as banning the export of certain military goods to Russia. But Russia moved forward, striking Ukraine.
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March 2, 2022 6:57 pm ET
The creation of the task force reflects a tough test of Russian oligarchs, many of whom have made their fortunes through their ties to Mr. Putin. Even if they are not directly involved in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they are helping Mr. Putin by helping him hide his assets and stay in power.
Russian oligarchs have invested their fortunes in assets around the world, and their ties to Mr. Putin have helped them gain influence and connections in the worlds of fine art, real estate, Wall Street and Silicon Valley.
Some members of the Russian elite are reportedly rushing to sell their assets to protect them from confiscation, presumably in anticipation of sanctions. One of the country’s most prominent oligarchs, Roman Abramovich, said on Wednesday he would sell Chelsea, the Premier League football team.
Other Moscow-linked oligarchs have hired US lobbyists and law firms to try to weaken US sanctions laws, such as the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 measure that initially sanctioned some Russian government officials in response to human rights violations.
Russian-Ukrainian war: what you need to know
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City captured. Russian troops took control of Kherson, the first Ukrainian city captured during the war. The capture of Kherson is significant because it allows the Russians to control most of the southern coast of Ukraine and move west towards Odessa.
Russian convoy. Satellite images show a Russian military convoy stretching for 40 miles on a highway north of Kyiv, next to burning houses and buildings. Experts fear that the column could be used to encircle and cut off the capital, or for a full-scale assault.
While many US law and lobbying firms have stopped representing Russian companies, not all have done so. For example, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, one of the nation’s largest law firms, appears to be working on a 2016 election-related lawsuit with Alfa Bank, which was sanctioned by the US last week. Sanctions on Alfa Bank were lighter than on some other Russian financial companies and did not require Skadden Arps to cut ties; The law firm did not respond to requests for comment.
Alfa Bank was founded by Ukrainian-Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman, who was separately fined by the European Union this week, noting that he is “mentioned as the main Russian financier and assistant to Putin’s inner circle.”
Mr. Adams, who will lead the task force’s day-to-day operations, has experience investigating Russian organized crime and recovering illegal assets. He joined the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan in 2013 and worked in the Violence and Organized Crime Unit before helping oversee its money laundering investigations.
Since 2018, he has helped run the office’s money laundering and transnational criminal enterprises division. Under his leadership, the unit successfully investigated cases involving an Armenian criminal organization, a bribery and money laundering scheme involving Brazilian government officials, and a racehorse doping ring, among others.
The working group will include prosecutors and investigators from the Department of Justice with experience in enforcing laws relating to sanctions, export controls, corruption, asset forfeiture, money laundering and taxes. And it will work with investigators from the IRS, the FBI, the Marshals Service, the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Postal Inspection Service.
The target group will target individuals and companies that attempt to circumvent anti-money laundering laws, hide their identities from financial institutions, and use cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions and launder money. The Justice Department said it would use civil and criminal asset forfeiture to seize assets owned by sanctioned people.
The department said its work will complement that of a transatlantic task force announced over the weekend to identify and seize the assets of fined Russian individuals and companies around the world.
Charlie Savage provided coverage from Washington, and Rebecca Davis O’Brien and William C. Rushbaum from New York.