The newly announced sanctions against Russia’s richest men are a critical piece of the West’s strategy to temper Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine. Deprive Vladimir Putin and his deputies of their yachts, jets, villas, and Western educations for their children, and they may think twice about continuing to bomb Kharkiv and Kyiv.
However, sanctions don’t have the desired effect if you can’t find the assets that need to be seized to significantly impact the oligarchs’ lifestyles and their ability to fund the war.
For too many years, permissive money laundering laws, anonymous shell corporations, and a highly incentivized class of investment managers, lawyers, and accountants have allowed oligarchs to hide ill-gotten gains and avoid taxes.
When we do trace these funds in the U.S., it is largely thanks to the Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN) whistleblower program, which provides financial rewards, anonymity, and confidentiality to those who bring forth information. With one legislative tweak, it could become the powerhouse tool needed to track down Russian kleptocracy and ensure sanctions actually hit the jugular.
When it comes to revealing money laundering or sanctions evasion practices, the government needs an insider—like a wealthy person’s money manager—to point it in the right direction. Insiders who become whistleblowers are usually the only people who can show regulators how to follow the money trail, often an opaque and convoluted labyrinth of trusts and...
ANKARA — US President Donald Trump made a series of “false” and “uncorroborated” claims about the Iran conflict and his foreign policy record during a recent press conference, according to a fact ...