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RUSSIAN ASSET TRACKER

Introducing a project to track down and cat­a­logue the vast wealth held out­side Russia by oli­garchs and key fig­ures close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The 22-year rule of Vladimir Putin has made vast for­tunes for oli­garchs, well-con­nect­ed politi­cians, secu­ri­ty offi­cials, and oth­er ben­e­fi­cia­ries of his cor­rupt, per­son­al­ist regime.

Early in his pres­i­den­cy, Putin earned praise for bring­ing to heel the tycoons who had plun­dered Russia’s econ­o­my in the 1990s. Some sig­naled their loy­al­ty to him, secur­ing their wealth and their place in the new order. A new gen­er­a­tion of wealthy men obe­di­ent to Putin has also arisen dur­ing his reign.

They are his allies, his friends, his financiers, and his enablers.

Though aver­age Russians have seen their incomes stag­nate in recent years, the country’s wealth­i­est fly around the world in exec­u­tive jets, lounge in Mediterranean man­sions, and cruise the seas in some of the world’s biggest yachts. Their chil­dren cavort in exclu­sive night­clubs and receive pres­ti­gious edu­ca­tions at the world’s top universities.

In the wake of Russia’s bru­tal assault on Ukraine, gov­ern­ments around the world have imposed sanc­tions on many of Putin’s enablers. But they have learned to keep their wealth obscured, hir­ing an army of lawyers to hide it in secre­tive bank accounts and cor­po­rate struc­tures that reach far off­shore. Figuring out who owns what, and how much of it, is a tall order even for expe­ri­enced police investigators.

That’s why we decid­ed to fol­low the trail, track­ing down as many of these assets as pos­si­ble and com­pil­ing them in a data­base for the pub­lic to see and use. We start­ed with a list of names of peo­ple who “active­ly par­tic­i­pate in the oppres­sion and cor­rup­tion of Putin’s regime” drawn up by the Anti-Corruption Foundation, led by oppo­si­tion leader Alexei Navalny. We’ll be expand­ing it soon to include oth­er Russians sanc­tioned for cor­rup­tion or their sup­port of Putin.

We looked for land, man­sions, com­pa­nies, boats, planes, and any­thing else of val­ue that could be tied through doc­u­men­tary evi­dence to Putin’s cir­cle. Some of these assets have been report­ed before. Some are being revealed here for the first time. Some are still to be dis­cov­ered: We’ll keep search­ing for more prop­er­ties and yachts, adding more names, and updat­ing this data­base reg­u­lar­ly. If you are aware of any­thing we’ve missed, please let us know by fill­ing out this form.

For now, we’ve uncov­ered over $17.5 bil­lion in assets, and counting.

Original source of arti­cle: https://www.occrp.org/

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