It is “essentially the most complete public database of oligarch property to this point,” in keeping with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Challenge, which collaborated with 27 media shops to launch the tracker. The software is interactive and shows the “huge wealth held exterior Russia by oligarchs and key figures shut” to the Russian president.
The investigative mission uncovered greater than 150 property value about $17 billion mixed, together with property, non-public planes, firm inventory, yachts, mansions and extra. Journalists found these property by combing by way of land information, company registries and offshore leaks.
“Russia beneath Vladimir Putin has been managed by a really small group of individuals, enablers who hold him in energy whereas benefiting from his patronage system on the expense of the Russian folks,” OCCRP Writer Drew Sullivan mentioned in a press launch.
That system has been beneath contemporary scrutiny since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, as Western governments have sought to freeze Putin and the oligarchs’ abroad property — and forestall them from touring. The purpose is two-pronged: Sanctions act as each a punishment for Russia’s ruling class and a cudgel to attempt to pressure Putin to again down.
The thought was conceived in February simply earlier than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in keeping with the Guardian, which is a part of the mission. The mission launched with “an inventory of 35 people named final yr by the jailed opposition chief Alexei Navalny as ‘key enablers and beneficiaries of the Kremlin’s kleptocracy.'”
Simply three weeks after the invasion, “27 of these people are topic to sanctions within the US and Europe. An extra seven have been blacklisted in Canada,” the Guardian wrote.
One of many folks on that record of 35 is Roman Abramovich, a 55-year-old value an estimated $13.5 billion. Though he has not been sanctioned by the UK and has denied ties to Putin, Abramovich just lately introduced that he’s promoting his Chelsea Soccer Membership, which he acquired in 2003. OCCRP’s database exhibits he has at the very least $7 billion value of property, together with a seaside property within the posh French Riviera, a Bombardier non-public jet and a number of other properties scattered all through London.
Others included within the database are businessman Alisher Usmanov, Igor Sechin (CEO of Russian oil large Rosneft) and Oleg Deripaska, a billionaire who made his fortune within the aluminum enterprise.
The OCCRP has launched different revealing exposés up to now, together with a damning report about Credit score Suisse that detailed purchasers that included criminals, alleged human rights abusers and events going through sanctions. The Swiss financial institution pushed again on their report.
