In addition to the Russian oligarchs, it is necessary to target the "facilitators", pleads the financier Bill Browder

Since the beginning of the Russian offensive in Ukraine ordered by President Vladimir Putin, which has aroused opprobrium in the world, sanctions have been increasing against Russian interests: banks and oligarchs have seen their assets frozen, the Russian central bank is heavily penalized and Russian planes are banned from many airspaces.

Targeting billionaires loyal to the regime aims to "deprive it of the flow of money" essential to financing the war, explains Bill Browder, the boss of the investment fund Hermitage Capital, interviewed by AFP when he left Paris. a meeting at 10 Downing Street in London.

“The most direct way to do this” is to sanction the oligarchs who “for the most part” “keep money” for Vladimir Putin, he adds.

Magnitsky case

Bill Browder is leading a campaign for the international adoption of a law punishing individuals accused of violating human rights after his Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, imprisoned in Moscow after denouncing a major network of corruption, died in 2009 in prison, where he had been beaten and deprived of treatment.

After the adoption of "Magnitsky laws" making it possible to sanction individuals for corruption in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada or in the three Baltic republics, Bill Browder has made France his next priority.

For Bill Browder, if Western sanctions are going in the right direction, the list of sanctioned oligarchs is "fairly short" and should be "much longer".

At this stage, "it is therefore very important that no one claims victory", he analyzes.

The list of sanctioned oligarchs should be "much longer", said Bill Browder after a meeting in Downing Street.

Tolga Akmen AFP

The British Prime Minister assured the deputies on Wednesday that after the first sets of sanctions adopted last week, London intended to "continue to tighten the noose" on Russian power.

The conservative leader promised to continue "to increase the economic pressure" if the master of the Kremlin did not withdraw his troops, without however saying whether the billionaire Roman Abramovich, owner of the English football club Chelsea, would in turn be targeted.

For its part, Washington on Wednesday instructed a dozen prosecutors to prosecute "corrupt Russian oligarchs", President Joe Biden having threatened to seize their "yachts, luxury apartments, and private jets", "ill-gotten".

"Facilitators"

"Basically, Western governments should take (the magazine's) Forbes list of 50 or 100 oligarchs and impose sanctions on all of them, unless there is a valid explanation for the person's lack of involvement. in support of Putin's regime," insists Bill Browder.

Another obstacle to overcome, and not the least: to be able to locate their possessions, often concealed through complex asset engineering, because the oligarchs do "everything possible to hide their assets".

“Many oligarchs hide their money (using the) name of their family members, so we have to target those family members. And sometimes even we have to go further to their representatives and proxies,” details the British naturalized American.

"One of the things I would suggest to all governments, therefore, is to strengthen or put in place rules that would require 'facilitators', intermediaries - bankers, lawyers, accountants and others involved in the structuring of assets - to disclose the information they have under penalty of criminal sanctions", he continues.

© 2022 AFP