Russian oligarchs under sanction, using discretion, use numerous stratagems to put a façade distance between them and the assets they hold. These artifices complicate the trailing of assets by the international financial authorities.
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The images of the mega yachts immobilized at the Ciotat, in the ports of Hamburg or Barcelona and on the Italian coast, turn loop on social networks. As as many symbols of the hunt for the assets of Russian oligarchs close to the Kremlin, launched by Europe and the United States, since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, on February 24th. Yet the work of the authorities to identify all the property (bank accounts, villas, yachts, private jets …) held by the 877 businessmen and politicians targeted by the sanctions of the European Union (EU), in order to to freeze and dry the resources of their owners, is only in its infancy.
Especially, the task promises to be difficult, because many chausse-hatches stand on the trail of the oligarchs: companies-screens created in tax havens, opaque financial assemblies, dummy beneficiaries identified in the commercial registers … battalions Lawyers were recruited, to cut the link, or blur, between these billionaires, who owe their fortune to the privatization of whole sections of the economy during the dismantling of the USSR, and their property. Now European states know it: the investments of Russian oligarchs in Europe are colossal. They are relying in tens of billions of euros.
It is in this context that a group of journalists piloted by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the British daily The Guardian, to which Le Monde and 22 other international media. , undertook to investigate the assets of these oligarchs, of which a very important share is owned outside Russia. The fruit of this census is published in a search engine accessible to the public, baptized Russian Asset Tracker (Russian asset tracking tool). It is a question of knowing which countries in Europe, or elsewhere are home to the wealth of these relatives of Vladimir Putin – those who have so far contributed to the power, politically or financially.
The project having been launched a few days before the invasion of Ukraine, the investigations were concentrated at a list of 35 lovers of the Kremlin established in 2021 by the Russian political and activist opponent Alexei Navalny – some have since been placed under Western sanctions ; others no. This Russian Asset Tracker, which will be enriched over time by the OCCPR, offers a first audit, unpublished, of the “offshore” fortune of these billionaires.
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