Pressure is growing on the US to sanction Roman Abramovich after claims he secretly ploughed at least $1.3 billion into American investment companies.
Investigators at State Street bank in Boston traced cash funnelled through offshore companies into the US from 2001 to 2016 and identified the owner as Abramovich, BuzzFeed News reported.
The oligarch, 55, has had assets frozen in the UK, the EU, Canada and Australia but moves by the US have been “conspicuous by their absence” said members of Congress who wrote to the White House urging it to act.
“We request that Abramovich be sanctioned as a matter of urgency,” wrote members of Congress including Tom Malinowski, a New Jersey Democrat who was an assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour under President Obama. “His blood money helps fuel Putin’s unprovoked and illegal war against Ukraine.”
The State Street investigators reported Abramovich’s investments in a series of “suspicious activity reports” to the US Treasury Department in 2015 and 2016, BuzzFeed reported. State Street has a stake in BuzzFeed. They detailed how the corporate structures of ten companies holding the $1.3 billion had frequently changed, alleging that this could be to “conceal ownership”.
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State Street’s reports about the companies in the British Virgin Islands and Cyprus came to light in a leak of documents from FinCEN, the US Treasury’s financial crimes enforcement network. State Street investigators reported Abramovich, his offshore companies, a US management company and an Austrian bank to the Treasury for suspicious activity in December 2015. Since receiving the information the US government has not acted and the State Street investigation remained secret.
Abramovich is understood to be on the radar of KleptoCapture, a task force formed under the US Justice Department that aims to freeze the assets of oligarchs close to President Putin.
A representative for Abramovich was contacted by The Times. The US Treasury said its policy was not to comment on any possible sanctions, investigations or actions. State Street was contacted for comment.
