Russian billionaire, businessman and member of the Federation Council Suleiman Kerimov attends a meeting on April 14, 2021 in Russia.
The United States took enforcement action on Thursday, placing restrictions on the Delaware-based Heritage Trust because sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov owns a real estate stake, the Treasury Department said.
The move places a trust fund worth more than $ 1 billion to the same restrictions as Kerimov, forbidding Americans from handling it or transferring funds.
It is the latest action to enforce Washington’s wide-ranging sanctions against Russian oligarchs and elites following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, which killed thousands and displaced millions of citizens.
“The treasury continues to use our full range of tools to expose and disrupt those who try to avoid our sanctions and conceal their ill-gotten gains,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.
According to the statement, Thursday’s action is intended to block Kerimov, who was fined by the United States in 2018 for being a Russian government official, from accessing the trust’s assets.
Senior Treasury Department officials told reporters that an investigation that lasted over a year revealed that Kerimov continued to exercise control of the funds through an attorney, even after he was appointed, using US and non-US undercover companies to conduct transactions, concealing his interest .
In May, authorities in Fiji seized Kerimov’s yacht worth $ 300 million at the request of the United States, the US Department of Justice reported. The yacht arrived in Hawaii this month.
The US Department of Justice’s KleptoCapture task force focused on seizing yachts and other luxury assets to strain the finances of Russian oligarchs in an attempt to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine.
The Ministry of the Treasury at the time of Kerimov’s appointment in 2018 accused him of bringing hundreds of millions of euros to France without reporting the money to the French tax authorities and said he was detained in France for two days in 2017.
Kerimov was also punished by the European Union.
