Putin-allied Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who previously employed British ex-spy Christopher Steele, was charged by the Justice Department with conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions imposed on him and his company.
Deripaska was indicted Thursday for sanctions evasion related to his Basic Element Limited company, which was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in 2018 for operating on behalf of the Russian government.
The Russian was charged in a 31-page unsealed indictment alongside fellow Russian Natalia Mikhaylovna Bardakova and U.S. citizen Olga Shriki, who were accused of assisting in the scheme. The trio was accused of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which could land them a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
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Shriki, a New Jersey resident and naturalized American citizen, was also charged with obstruction of justice for deleting electronic records showing her participation in the illegal effort, and she was arrested this morning. Bardakova was further charged with making false statements to FBI agents.
Another Russian, Ekaterina Olegovna Voronina, was charged with making false statements to Department of Homeland Security agents when she tried to enter the United States to give birth to Deripaska’s child.
A Washington, D.C., mansion tied to Deripaska was raided by the FBI last October. Deripaska had sued the Treasury Department in 2019 in an effort to fight U.S. sanctions against him, and the oligarch unsuccessfully asked the Supreme Court in June to toss the sanctions.
The Justice Department said Thursday that Deripaska “conspired with others to evade and to violate those sanctions in various ways and over the course of several years” and, through a corporate cut-out named Gracetown Inc., the longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin “illegally utilized the U.S. financial system to maintain and retain three luxury properties in the United States.”
Prosecutors said Deripaska also employed Shriki and Bardakova “to utilize U.S. financial institutions to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of services for his benefit in the United States.”
“In the wake of Russia’s unjust and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, I promised the American people that the Justice Department would work to hold accountable those who break our laws and threaten our national security,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “Today’s charges demonstrate we are keeping that promise.”
The Thursday indictment said Shriki facilitated the more than $3 million sale of a California music studio in 2019 that Deripaska had owned through a series of corporate shell companies. Shriki then allegedly attempted to move the millions through one of the shell companies, Ocean Studios California LLC, to a Russia-based account belonging to another Deripaska company.
The indictment also said Bardakova, who was largely based in Russia, directed Shriki to conduct illegal transactions for Deripaska from 2018 to 2020.
“Bardakova instructed Shriki to purchase and send flower and gift deliveries on behalf of Deripaska to Deripaska’s social contacts in the United States and Canada,” the DOJ said. “The deliveries included, among others, Easter gift deliveries to a U.S. television host, two flower deliveries to a then-former Canadian Parliament member, and two flower deliveries in 2020 to Voronina while she was in the United States in 2020 to give birth to Deripaska’s child.”
The Justice Department also said Shriki and Bardakova helped Deripaska’s girlfriend, Voronina, travel from Russia to the U.S. in 2020 so she could give birth to their child in America, with Deripaska allegedly spending hundreds of thousands of dollars “so that his child would take advantage of the U.S. health care system and U.S. birthright citizenship.”
Prosecutors said Shriki and Bardakova also attempted to facilitate Voronina’s return to the U.S. in 2020 to give birth to their second child, though this was “an attempt that was thwarted.”
Deripaska’s link to another criminal case, special counsel John Durham’s indictment of Steele source Igor Danchenko, is also notable.
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Steele was working for Deripaska before, during, and after his time targeting Trump in 2016. Deripaska had paid Steele to investigate future Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort after accusing the GOP operative of stealing millions from him, and Steele sought help from the opposition research firm Fusion GPS in early 2016.
Steele was soon hired to put his dossier together by Fusion, which itself was hired by Clinton campaign general counsel March Elias and was paid by the Clinton campaign.
