The U.S. has imposed sanctions on a Russian man and three companies for a sanctions evasion scheme.
The purpose of the scheme to evade U.S. sanctions was to unfreeze more than $1.5 billion that belongs to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
The U.S. Treasury said Deripaska coordinated with Russian businessman Dmitry Beloglazov, owner of the financial company Titul, in June 2023. A deal was planned to sell Deripaska’s frozen shares in a European company.
Within weeks of this, the Russian financial company AO Iliadis was set up as a subsidiary of Titul. In early 2024, Iliadis acquired the Russian investment holding company International Company Joint Stock Company Rasperia Trading Limited (Rasperia), which holds Deripaska’s frozen shares.
The US Treasury reported that Beloglazov, Titul and Iliadis were sanctioned for their activities in the Russian financial services sector. The report emphasizes that sanctions were also imposed on Rasperia.
This is not the first such story linked to Derpaska’s name.
In 2023, it was reported about New Jersey resident Olga Shriki, who, according to prosecutors, helped Russian billionaire Deripaska to evade U.S. sanctions. Manhattan federal prosecutors believe Olga Shriki, who began working for Deripaska in New York back in 2013, continued to arrange financial transactions for the Russian aluminum magnate even after the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on him in 2018 in response to the Kremlin’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
In late 2023, a court in New York sentenced former FBI agent Charles McGonigal, who worked for the sanctioned Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska, to 50 months in prison, as reported by Voice of America. In addition to prison time, McGonigal will have to pay a $40,000 fine. He was found guilty of conspiracy to violate the sanctions.