In the crosshairs
Every day its new names.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine on February 24, the European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom have been extending their lists of those close to the Russian regime, who have become pariahs of the international financial system with the stroke of a pen.
Even Switzerland and Monaco are joining the movement.
Parliamentarians, high-ranking military officers, prominent journalists, leading industrialists and financiers...several hundred people are now subject to the freezing of their assets, sometimes accompanied by residence bans.
The main economic sanctions against Russia Emmanuelle MICHEL AFP
Among them Nikolai Tokarev, president of the oil and gas heavyweight Transneft and presented by the EU as a "longtime acquaintance" of the Russian president, Sergei Chemezov, boss of the defense industry conglomerate Rostec, the man Russian-Uzbek businessman Alicher Ousmanov, referred to as "one of Vladimir Putin's favorite oligarchs", or the head of the Russian development bank VEB Igor Shuvalov.
The tycoons targeted will be seized "yachts, luxury apartments and private jets", threatened US President Joe Biden on Tuesday March 1 in his State of the Union address.
Are also concerned "their spouses, their children, their SCI (real estate civil society), so that they cannot hide behind financial arrangements", underlined the same day the French Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Mayor.
The Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire at the Elysée, February 28, 2022 in Paris Ludovic MARIN AFP / Archives
Arrangements often motivated by a concern for discretion or tax optimization.
To the oligarchs, that is to say rich personalities close to the Russian power, is added "a kind of very provided backbench, some 2,000 to 3,000 people who are also very, very rich [...] and who are all linked and supported the regime" of Vladimir Putin, professor at the center for the study of corruption at the University of Sussex (Brighton, United Kingdom) Robert Barrington told AFP.
From London to the French Riviera
France "is a land of welcome for these ill-gotten gains", notes Sara Brimbeuf, head of the NGO Transparency International France, to AFP.
And "luxury real estate is a privileged channel for the laundering of corruption or the embezzlement of public funds".
The real estate holdings of these personalities are concentrated in popular seaside resorts on the Côte d'Azur, in western Paris and in a handful of resorts in the Alps.
But it is very difficult to identify them with certainty.
Daria Kaleniuk, Ukrainian figurehead in the fight against corruption quoted by Transparency, went through land registers, registry and confidential documents revealed by whistleblowers.
Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, June 4, 2021 in Saint Petersburg Olga MALTSEVA AFP / Archives
According to her, a villa in Saint-Tropez belongs to the founder of the aluminum giant Rusal Oleg Deripaska, subject since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 to American sanctions.
The names of Boris and Arkadi Rotenberg, newly targeted by the Americans, are linked to two properties near Nice and Grasse, according to Ms. Kaleniuk.
The two brothers, childhood friends of Vladimir Putin with whom they practiced judo, once controlled construction giants and got rich thanks to huge public contracts, in particular for the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 .
Russian oligarch Arkady Rotenberg (d) decorated by Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2020 in Sevastopol, Crimea Alexander NEMENOV POOL/AFP/Archives
A sumptuous villa in Saint-Raphaël is also attributed by Daria Kaleniuk to Gennady Timchenko, quoted on the European and American lists and considered by the EU as a "confidant" of Putin.
This billionaire is co-founder and shareholder of several companies, including the Volga investment group and the Gunvor commodity trading group.
The Club de Cavalière, a luxury hotel in Le Lavandou located on Cap Nègre, is part of a company run by his wife Elena.
Russian oligarch Gennady Timchenko in May 2018 in Moscow Sergei SAVOSTYANOV SPUTNIK/AFP/Archives
London, because of the facilities long offered to wealthy Russians and their families and its elite education system, has also attracted so many investments from oligarchs that it has earned the nickname "Londongrad".
The total real estate assets acquired in the United Kingdom by Russians accused of corruption or close to the Kremlin "that we were able to trace amount to 1.5 billion pounds", or more than 1.8 billion euros, notes Professor Barrington, who cites the upscale neighborhoods of Kensington, Chelsea or Hampstead.
But “it is surely much more than that in reality”.
The oligarchs have invested on all continents and their assets are targeted in other countries such as Australia and Japan.
None of the interlocutors interviewed by AFP was able to value the total of these goods.
Many obstacles
To apply the sanctions, everything depends on a handful of professionals: bankers, notaries, lawyers... Even those who are regularly accused of turning a blind eye.
Dodgy Russian investments "don't just happen by themselves," Jodi Vittori, a corruption researcher at Georgetown University in the United States and non-resident member of the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace, told AFP. .
The oligarchs "have facilitators: lawyers, accountants, art dealers..."
"Not all of them play their role", adds Ms. Brimbeuf, at Transparency, and "they do not make their declarations of suspicion (reporting to the authorities, editor's note), while they are subject to anti-money laundering obligations".
The revelations on February 20 by a consortium of journalists around Credit Suisse, accused of having hosted tens of billions of euros in funds of criminal or illicit origin for several decades, "show that the bank has failed in the major widths to its reporting obligations".
The Credit Suisse logo in April 2021 in Lausanne, Switzerland FABRICE COFFRINI AFP/Archives
The inventory of assets is long and tedious, "the examination of the files being done by hand", according to a spokesperson for a large bank at AFP.
Often complex shell companies and tax schemes must be sifted through to connect a sanctioned individual to their assets.
“One of the obstacles is the use of nominees,” Julien Martinet, lawyer for the French firm Swiftlitigation, told AFP.
Carrying out investigations against the latter "would require the mobilization of significant intelligence services".
Consequence: few big "takes" publicized so far.
A mega-yacht worth 100 to 120 million euros, L'Amore Vero, was seized on Thursday in La Ciotat (south of France).
The yacht Amore Vero belonging to a company linked to the boss of the Russian oil giant Rosneft, Igor Setchine, seized by France, March 3, 2022 in La Ciotat NICOLAS TUCAT AFP / Archives
He was about to sail to Turkey, said Eric Salles, head of operations for the customs coastguard in the Mediterranean.
It belongs to a company linked to the powerful boss of the Russian oil giant Rosneft, Igor Sechin.
Italy announced on Saturday that it had frozen around 140 million euros in the assets of Russian oligarchs, including two yachts placed in receivership the day before: the Lady M, worth 95 million euros and belonging to the tycoon steel Alexei Mordashov, a close Putin target of EU sanctions, and the Lena (50 million euros), owned by Gennady Timchenko.
The implementation of sanctions "cannot be done overnight", reports to AFP Carole Grimaud Potter, professor of geopolitics of Russia at the University of Montpellier and founder of the think tank Center for Russia and Eastern EuropeResearch.
Sara Brimbeuf recalls that "several investigations opened more than ten years ago during the Arab spring are still in progress".
"Task force"
To circumvent these difficulties, the American Minister of Justice Merrick Garland announced on Wednesday the creation of a cell dedicated to the prosecution of "corrupt Russian oligarchs".
Called "KleptoCapture", it has more than ten prosecutors, criminal law or national security specialists, as well as investigators from the federal police, tax authorities or postal services.
US Minister of Justice Merrick Garland, November 8, 2021 in Washington Olivier DOULIERY AFP / Archives
France also has its "task force", ie several dozen people from the tax administration (DGFiP), the financial intelligence service Tracfin, customs and the general management of the Treasury.
Even amateurs participate in the hunt.
On Twitter, American teenager Jack Sweeney tracks private jets on his "Russian Oligarchs Jets" account.
But it is not enough to identify the goods.
If the constitution of lists of oligarchs on a European scale allows the freezing of their assets (the prohibition to sell or rent a property for example, but not to live in it), the next step, which is the seizure, is far more complex from a legal point of view.
"To infringe the right to property, you need a law and not just a regulation or an order", underlines Mr. Martinet.
What allowed the seizure of the mega-yacht in La Ciotat, "is that they tried to move and therefore outlawed themselves", specifies a supervisor of the French "task force".
Run for your life
Several Russian billionaires preferred to send their yachts as quickly as possible to more conciliatory territorial waters.
"There are a lot of echoes in the (nautical) community about Russian yachts preparing to leave the Côte d'Azur" for fear of sanctions, a source familiar with this sector told AFP, referring to Dubai as a potential destinations.
The Maldives, which does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, also seems to be a base: several yachts have been spotted there, including those belonging to aluminum magnates Oleg Deripaska and steel Aleksandr Abramov.
On the other hand, we have not yet seen any massive sales of real estate on the Côte d'Azur, according to an official from the trade union of professionals in the sector.
Several Russian billionaires have in any case preferred to cut ties with their companies in sight.
Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich owner of Chelsea, May 21, 2017 at Stamford Bridge Stadium, London Ben STANSALL AFP / Archives
The famous owner of London football club Chelsea Roman Abramovich, not (yet) targeted by sanctions, has put his shares up for sale.
The proceeds will go to a "charitable foundation for the benefit of all the victims of the war in Ukraine", indicated this close to Putin, who enriched himself thanks to the privatizations of public companies under Yeltsin and by co-founding the aluminum producer Rusal.
Roman Abramovich is at the head of a fortune of around 12 billion euros according to Forbes, including the Château de la Croë in Cap d'Antibes, a 2,000 square meter residence, two yachts and several private planes.
The oligarch Mikhail Fridman has withdrawn from the investment fund LetterOne which he co-founded and from all the European groups in which he is a shareholder, as has his partner Petr Aven.
The main economic sanctions against Russia Emmanuelle MICHEL AFP
The two men, targeted by European sanctions, deny having any "financial or political relationship" with Vladimir Putin.
Mikhail Fridman even denounced the war in Ukraine, a "tragedy" which will "ravaging" the two countries.
© 2022 AFP