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Task Force KleptoCapture is a United States Department of Justice unit established in March 2022 with the goal of enforcing sanctions on Russian oligarchs in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [1] [2] [3]
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Task Force KleptoCapture is a United States Department of Justice unit established in March 2022 with the goal of enforcing sanctions on Russian oligarchs in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [1] [2] [3]
Dating back to the outbreak of the pro-Russian unrest in Eastern Ukraine in 2014, the United States has imposed numerous economic sanctions against the Russian government, military, and strategic sectors of the economy for its actions. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the United States imposed new sanctions against Russia. Existing sanctions were also strengthened.
During his State of the Union Address that same year, U.S. President Joe Biden announced this effort:
Tonight, I say to the Russian oligarchs and the corrupt leaders who’ve bilked billions of dollars off this violent regime: No more.
The United States — I mean it. The United States Department of Justice is assembling a dedicated task force to go after the crimes of the Russian oligarchs.
We're joining with European Allies to find and seize their yachts, their luxury apartments, their private jets. We're coming for your ill-begotten gains. [4]
The day after Biden's speech, U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced the formation of Task Force KleptoCapture, an inter-agency effort. [5] [6]
The leader of the Task Force was initially described as "a veteran corruption prosecutor" from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York assigned to the U.S. Deputy Attorney General's Office. On March 3, 2022, this prosecutor was revealed as Andrew Adams, who has previously worked as co-chief of the Southern District of New York's Money Laundering and Transnational Criminal Enterprises. His previous work includes the prosecutions of thief in law Razhden Shulaya as well as the asset forfeiture case against Bitcoin money launderer Charlie Shrem. [7] [8]
Others announced as part of the DOJ's team include deputy directors from the United States Department of Justice National Security Division and United States Department of Justice Criminal Division leading more than a dozen attorneys from those divisions, as well as the Tax Division, Civil Division, and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices across the country. The attorneys listed on KleptoCapture court filings are some of the most experienced prosecutors in the Justice Department. [9] [10]
In addition, was also announced as incorporating officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Marshals Service, Internal Revenue Service, United States Postal Inspection Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and United States Secret Service. The main goal of the task force is to impose the sanctions set against these Russian individuals to freeze and seize the assets that the U.S. government claimed were proceeds of their illegal involvement with the Russian government and the invasion of Ukraine. [11]
On March 11, 2022, United States President Joseph R. Biden signed Executive Order 14068, "Prohibiting Certain Imports, Exports, and New Investment With Respect to Continued Russian Federation Aggression," an order of economic sanctions prohibiting the trade in luxury goods.[ citation needed ]
In tandem, the Treasury specifically designated assets of Viktor Vekselberg worth an estimated $180 million: an Airbus A319-115 jet and the motoryacht Tango. [12] Estimates of the value of the Tango range from $90 million (U.S. Department of Justice estimate) to $120 million (from the website Superyachtfan.com). [13]
On March 25, 2022, an FBI Special Agent filed an affidavit in support of seizure of the Tango with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The affidavit warrant states probable cause to seize the Tango for suspect violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1349 (conspiracy to commit bank fraud), 50 U.S.C. § 1705 (International Emergency Economic Powers Act), and 18 U.S.C. § 1956 (money laundering), and that the seizure is authorized by American statutes on civil and criminal asset forfeiture. [14] [15]
On April 4, 2022, Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui signed an Order approving the seizure. Judge Faruqui concluded his order stating, "The seizure of the Target Property is just the beginning of the reckoning that awaits those who would facilitate Putin's atrocities. Neither the Department of Justice, nor history, will be kind to the Oligarchs who chose the wrong side. […] The Department of Justice's seizure echoes the message of the brave Ukrainian soldiers of Snake Island." [16]
The Civil Guard of Spain and U.S. federal agents of both the United States Department of Justice and United States Department of Homeland Security seized the Tango in Mallorca. A United States Department of Justice press release states that the seizure of the Tango was by request of Task Force KleptoCapture. [17] [18] [10]
On June 6, 2022, the United States was authorized to seize two of Roman Abramovich’s aircraft, a Boeing 787-8 and a Gulfstream G650ER worth more than $400 million. A United States press release states that the seizures were requested by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, working with Task Force KleptoCapture. [9] [19]
On August 8, 2022, a U.S. federal magistrate judge signed an order authorizing the United States to seize the private airplane of Andrei Skoch, a sanctioned Russian oligarch who is a member of Russia's Duma. U.S. press releases indicated that the airplane is an Airbus A319-100 with tail number P4-MGU worth over $90 million, which had previously been blocked by the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York led this investigation in partnership with the KleptoCapture Task Force. [20] [21]
Viktor Felixovich Vekselberg is a Ukrainian-born Russian-Israeli-Cypriot oligarch, billionaire, and businessman. He is the owner and president of Renova Group, a Russian conglomerate. According to Forbes, as of November 2021, his fortune is estimated at $9.3 billion, making him the 262nd richest person in the world.
Russian oligarchs are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth in the 1990s via the Russian privatisation that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The failing Soviet state left the ownership of state assets contested, which allowed for informal deals with former USSR officials as a means to acquire state property.
Victoria Ann Toensing is an American attorney, Republican Party operative and with her husband, Joseph diGenova, a partner in the Washington law firm diGenova & Toensing. Toensing and diGenova frequently appeared on Fox News and Fox Business channels, until diGenova used a November 2019 appearance to spread conspiracy theories about George Soros, leading to widespread calls for him to be banned from the network. In 2019, Toensing and diGenova began representing Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash in his efforts to block extradition to the United States under a federal indictment and became embroiled in the Trump–Ukraine scandal. The couple has worked with Rudy Giuliani in support of President Donald Trump beginning in 2018, and was named to join a legal team led by Giuliani to overturn the results of the 2020 United States presidential election in which Trump was defeated.
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Equitable sharing refers to a United States program in which the proceeds of liquidated seized assets from asset forfeiture are shared between state and federal law enforcement authorities. The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 set up the arrangement in which state and local police can share the seizures with federal agents. The law allows state and local law enforcement to retain up to 80% of the proceeds from seizures made in collaboration with federal agencies and from seized assets turned over to the federal government that the federal government then elects to adopt.
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International sanctions have been imposed against Russia and Crimea during the Russo-Ukrainian War by a large number of countries, including the United States, Canada, the European Union, and international organisations following the Russian annexation of Crimea, which began in late February 2014. Belarus has also been sanctioned for its cooperation with and assistance to Russian armed forces. The sanctions were imposed against individuals, businesses, and officials from Russia and Ukraine. Russia responded with sanctions against several countries, including a total ban on food imports from Australia, Canada, Norway, Japan, the United States, the EU and the United Kingdom.
In the United States, civil forfeiture is a process in which law enforcement officers take assets from people who are suspected of involvement with crime or illegal activity without necessarily charging the owners with wrongdoing. While civil procedure, as opposed to criminal procedure, generally involves a dispute between two private citizens, civil forfeiture involves a dispute between law enforcement and property such as a pile of cash or a house or a boat, such that the thing is suspected of being involved in a crime. To get back the seized property, owners must prove it was not involved in criminal activity. Sometimes it can mean a threat to seize property as well as the act of seizure itself. Civil forfeiture is not considered to be an example of a criminal justice financial obligation.
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Assistant United States Attorney Andrew Adams of the Money Laundering and Asset Forfeiture Unit is in charge of the forfeiture aspects of the case"
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