Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich left almost 4,000 million euros to his children in early February 2022, three weeks before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the British newspaper writes on Friday. The guardian.
In law, a trust is a testamentary disposition whereby an heir or legatee is responsible for the preservation and transfer, upon death, of the estate or bequest to a third party.
While sanctions experts have pointed out that these processes are not illegal, they admit, according to the British daily, that the oligarch’s dense web of financial transactions makes it difficult to impose new sanctions if necessary.
Abramovich disputes the sanctions imposed on him by the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU) because of his ties to the Kremlin.
According to sources cited by Bloomberg, the United States has not yet sanctioned the tycoon, who still tried to position himself as an alleged “unofficial mediator” in peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, although senior officials believe this was a “trick” for to which they asked to reprimand Abramovich.
Assets include, for example, luxury properties and a fleet of superyachts, helicopters and private jets, which as of this Friday have Abramovich’s seven children as beneficiaries, the youngest of whom is nine years old.
The files, according to the British newspaper, appear to have been obtained through the theft of data from an offshore service provider in Cyprus, which manages Abramovich’s funds.
The newspaper adds that it received the documents anonymously.
THE The protector consulted a former senior US official, an expert on sanctions enforcement, who acknowledged that this operation allowed Abramovich to successfully waive any additional sanctions to freeze his assets.
“On its own, it is difficult to determine ownership of an asset due to the labyrinthine way they appear under fictitious companies and trusts. If you add additional layers of abstraction when it comes to pinpointing who is ultimately responsible for that asset, the application will of sanctions it can become a very complicated exercise,” said the Guardian source.
Neither Abramovich nor his children commented on the case to the British newspaper.
The Russian military offensive was launched on February 24 last year to, according to Putin, “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security.
The invasion was condemned by the international community at large, which responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing political and economic sanctions on Russia.
The UN presented 6,919 dead civilians and 11,075 wounded as confirmed since the start of the war, emphasizing that these numbers are far below the real ones.
Source: DN
