Oligarch Roman Abramovich handed millions in assets to his kids before sanctions hit: FBI

Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich transferred his Europa Settlement Belief to his seven kids, the FBI has discovered.
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Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich secretly transferred tons of of thousands and thousands of dollars’ value of belongings — together with superyachts and one of many world’s largest personal jets — to his kids simply days earlier than he was positioned below worldwide sanctions, an analyst for the FBI has discovered.

Court docket paperwork filed final week within the US authorities’s effort to grab the billionaire’s dear personal planes revealed the convoluted machinations he has used to protect his huge wealth, the Sunday Occasions of London revealed.

In an affidavit filed Monday to the Southern District of New York, FBI Particular Agent Alan Fowler wrote that Abramovich, a longtime ally of Vladimir Putin, used a sequence of shell corporations to buy the 2 plane — a bespoke Gulfstream G650ERa value about $60 million and a custom-made Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner valued at $350 million, one of the costly personal jets on this planet.

In February 2022 — simply days earlier than Putin’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine triggered punishing sanctions towards the Russian president’s oligarch cronies — Abramovich made some or all of his seven kids the beneficiaries of the Cyprus-based Europa Settlement Belief, the doc alleges.

The Europa Belief controls the shell corporations that, on paper, personal Abramovich’s jets, a number of yachts, a helicopter, and different belongings, Fowler discovered.

Roman Abramovich speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin throughout a enterprise assembly in Sochi, Russia on July 19, 2016.

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Abramovich had owned the Chelsea Soccer membership in London earlier than he was sanctioned by the UK authorities.

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Roman Abramovich’s Gulfstream plane was value roughly $60 million.

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Abramovich’s Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner is reportedly valued at a whooping $350 million.

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Roman Abramovich together with his daughter Sofia Abramovich.

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Abramovich, who made his fortune via Russian power companies within the early years of Putin’s “KGB capitalism,” and located fame because the flashy proprietor of London’s Chelsea Soccer Membership, has 4 daughters and three sons between the ages of 8 and 30 — all of whom maintain twin citizenship in Russia and both Britain or the US.