The United States and its allies have frozen more than $58 billion from Russian oligarchs
The United States and its allies have blocked or seized more than $58 billion worth of assets owned or controlled by sanctioned Russians in the past year as Western governments ramp up pressure on the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a report. Joint communiqué from a multinational of the working group for the application of sanctions.
Russia’s Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs (REPO) working group held its sixth multilateral meeting of officials on Thursday morning to discuss the group’s ongoing work and vow to “double down” its efforts to punish Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and his associates. associates. The working group is a joint effort between the US, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, France, Japan, the UK, and the European Commission.
“The REPO will redouble efforts to hold Russia accountable for its unjust war, countering Russian efforts to undermine, circumvent or evade REPO’s collective sanctions,” according to a joint statement released after the meeting and first obtained by CNN.
“REPO will continue to identify, locate, and freeze the assets of sanctioned Russians, with the goal of depriving the Kremlin of the funds it needs to fight its illegal war,” it continued.
Identifying Sanctions Evasion: The task force, which was formed last March, is also taking additional action against sanctions evasion as the US and its allies work to seal the cracks in a sanctions regime that has weakened but not paralyzed the Russian economy.
Following Thursday’s meeting, the REPO also issued a joint global advisory to help the private sector detect and prevent common methods of sanctions evasion, such as using family members to maintain access to sanctioned assets, creating complex ownership structures, and using third-party jurisdictions and false business information to ship controlled goods, including those that support the Kremlin’s war machine.
The task force has frozen financial assets and seized luxury yachts, high-end real estate and even priceless works of art, and US officials have recovered a possible Fabergé egg from a yacht seized from a Russian oligarch last summer.
A US Treasury official told CNN that the REPO also provides the governments involved with a valuable and streamlined mechanism to apply many of the same tools and best practices to the broader effort to crack down on sanctions evasion.
More than a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden administration officials are focused on how to fill the gaps in sanctions evasion, a problem that runs the gamut from adversaries like China to allies like Turkey, India and United Arab Emirates.