Reveal secret documents
Abramovich transferred fortunes to children before the outbreak of the war
In early February, shortly before war broke out in Ukraine, the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich is said to have redistributed his fortune. This is now shown by secret documents.
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Roman Abramovich is said to have reorganized ten secret offshore trusts in early February last year.
According to a newspaper report, the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich (56) transferred assets worth several billion US dollars to his children shortly before the start of his homeland’s war of aggression against Ukraine. This emerges from hacked documents available to the British “Guardian”. Accordingly, ten secret offshore trusts were reorganized in early February last year.
“The sweeping overhaul of Abramovich’s financial affairs began just days after governments threatened to impose sanctions on Russian oligarchs in the event of an invasion,” the report said. This raises the question of whether they were made “to protect the oligarch’s immense wealth from the threat of asset freezes”.
Money stashed away in tax havens
As a result, the children became owners of Abramovich’s status symbols such as luxury real estate, a fleet of super yachts, helicopters and private jets. According to the Guardian, the documents come from hacked data from a Cypriot financial service provider that was leaked to the newspaper. This shows how the oligarch had hidden his assets in complicated structures in tax havens.
Abramovich was placed on the EU and UK sanctions list in March 2022. Unlike those close to Putin, his family members were not subject to sanctions. The “Guardian” quoted sanctions experts, according to which the reorganization of his assets may have been designed to circumvent sanctions, but is not illegal. Abramovich and his children did not respond to detailed inquiries, the British newspaper reported. The former owner of English Premier League club Chelsea has denied any ties to the Kremlin and is attempting to take legal action to resist EU measures. (SDA)