US Department of Justice creates New Task force to Counter Russian Oligarchs

Earlier this month, the United States Department of Justice launched a task force that targets financial institutions, banks, money transmission services, and crypto exchanges. The new task force is known as, KleptoCapture and it will investigate firms and institutions that allow Russian oligarchs to move money. According to the DOJ, Russian oligarchs “will be in the crosshairs of this investigation.”

The DOJ describes the task force as “an interagency law enforcement task force dedicated to enforcing the sweeping sanctions, export restrictions, and economic countermeasures that the United States has imposed, along with allies and partners, in response to Russia’s unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine.”

Furthermore, a DOJ official has stated that KleptoCapture’s goal is “to bring any appropriate charge against any sanctioned Russian oligarch or entity, and those who would help them to evade economic sanctions.”

He then emphasized that “Financial institutions, banks, money transmission services, cryptocurrency exchanges who willfully fail to maintain adequate anti-money laundering policies and procedures and allow these oligarchs to move money, to allow for the flow of their money, will be in the crosshairs of this investigation.”

Attorney General, Merrick Garland, said last week that the DOJ will “leave no stone unturned” to seize assets in violation of new sanctions.

“The task force is going to bring together prosecutors, agents, analysts, translators from across the department and across the U.S. government to pursue the crimes and the assets of Russian oligarchs, and others who have enabled the Russian regime responsible for the invasion of Ukraine,” the senior DOJ official detailed.

“Those enablers have amassed huge wealth through corruption, extortion, and the degradation of the rule of law. Success for this task force is defined by dismantling, disruption, and discomfort for those enablers and their network,” he added.

He then clarified that oligarchs who are subject to U.S. sanctions will not automatically have their property seized. “Simply being blocked, or simply belonging to a known oligarch is not in itself sufficient for the Department of Justice to forfeit that property or to obtain a seizure warrant,” he said.

Source: Bitcoin News