“Russian Asset Tracker”: On the trail of the oligarchs

An international research cooperation has uncovered assets of Russian oligarchs with a total value of more than 15 billion euros. Are on the project “Russian Asset Tracker”. NDR and WDR involved.

Villas in Bavaria and Sardinia, a castle in Austria, stately homes in Great Britain and private yachts in Spanish waters: These are just a selection of the possessions in Europe that belong to Russian oligarchs and their families and which have now been disclosed in an international research project.

Under the title “Russian Asset Tracker”, 25 media will document this wealth in future in order to provide insights into the wealth of the Russian elite far away from the Kremlin. The results of the research are now online.

More than seven billion euros owned by the Abramovich family

So far, the research has identified 149 assets owned by Russian oligarchs and their families. Money was therefore invested most frequently in European real estate. Roman Abramowitsch, still owner of the British soccer club FC Chelsea, and his family alone own 46 properties in France, Austria and Great Britain as well as 19 commercial areas. Together with their land holdings, private planes and shares in the company, the family’s fortune amounts to more than seven billion euros.

owned under the children’s names

However, the research also reveals the possessions of less prominent oligarchs and officials. For example Vladimir Solovyov’s villa on Lake Como in Italy. The moderator of the Russian state broadcasters Rossiya 1 and Rossiya 24 is described by the EU as a “propagandist” and the media call him “Putin’s mouthpiece”.

Nikolai Tokarev is the head of the gas and oil company Transneft and a close confidant of Putin. His daughter Maija Bolotova owns companies in Croatia that hold land on the island of Losinj worth more than four million euros. This also includes a castle from the 19th century. In Paris, on the other hand, the daughter and ex-wife of Putin’s press spokesman Dmitry Peskov own an apartment in a prime location through a French company. Abramovich, Solovyov, Bolotova and Peskov did not respond to press inquiries.

Navalny’s list

The found possessions are the beginning of the research at which NDR and WDR as well as numerous international media such as the “Guardian” and “Le Monde” are involved. Coordinated like them by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). The journalists access public register data, but also numerous data leaks.

“We at OCCRP have been investigating and exposing Russian assets in the West for 15 years, so we know how these assets tend to be hidden,” said Drew Sullivan, who co-founded OCCRP and now heads it. Also reporters from NDR and WDR have identified questionable assets from Russia in recent years, most recently as part of the Pandora Papers.

The current research initially focuses on a group called “Navalny 35”. The politician critical of the Kremlin, Alexei Navalny, survived a poison attack in 2020.

Navalny’s organization, the Anti-Corruption Foundation, later published a list of 35 people who are said to benefit significantly from Vladimir Putin’s policies. She accuses them of corruption and human rights violations. 13 of them can also be found on the sanctions lists of the EU.

For example Gennady Timchenko, a confidant of Putin. His yacht “Lena”, worth almost 50 million euros, was confiscated in Italy at the beginning of March. Timchenko resigned today without giving a reason from the board of directors of the Russian gas company Novatek. Or Alisher Usmanow, whose presumed private yacht “Dilbar” with two helipads and a huge swimming pool is currently in the port of Hamburg. Their value is estimated at around 500 million euros.

On request, Usmanow has his press team say that the “Dilbar” was transferred to a foundation years ago. The ownership rights are with his family, he does not own the yacht, he can only rent it.

Since February 21, the European Commission has expanded its list of sanctions by seven Time to take action against individuals and Russian companies who have a part in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or are said to benefit from Putin’s regime.

No information from Germany

So far, the implementation of the EU sanctions list has been very different across Europe. According to Dutch Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag, assets worth six million euros have been frozen in her country so far. French authorities say they have frozen assets worth 850 million euros. In Belgium, the sum is even ten billion.

Only in Germany do you keep a low profile. The Deutsche Bundesbank, to which all frozen funds from credit institutions must be reported, said on request: “The Deutsche Bundesbank does not provide third parties with this information.” The information is passed on to the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection. There, however, one refers to the Bundesbank and writes: “Statistical information on which assets the responsible local authorities have confiscated is not available to the federal government.” So far it is unclear whether the property of Russian oligarchs was frozen or confiscated in Germany at all.

International working group seeks information

Financial crime expert Sebastian Fiedler is a member of the Bundestag for the SPD. He says that the handling of sanctions in Germany has been overslept in recent years. This means the politically responsible “across all parties”. For Fiedler it is already clear that there is also a legal backlog, for example to create the necessary investigative powers.

An additional aspect complicates the search for the assets. Many properties are held through letterbox companies in countries such as Liechtenstein or the British Virgin Islands, which do not provide any information about the actual owners. For this reason, an international working group is now to collect and exchange information on Russian assets with the aim of implementing the respective sanctions in the best possible way. In addition to Germany, Italy, Great Britain and the European Commission, the USA, Canada and Japan are also involved. In Germany, this working group is led jointly by the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection.