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Vladimir Putin and Arkady Rotenberg have been friends since childhood
One of Vladimir Putin’s closest friends may have used Barclays Bank in London to launder money and evade sanctions, leaked documents suggest.
Billionaire Arkady Rotenberg has known the Russian president since childhood.
The United States and the EU imposed financial restrictions, or sanctions, on Mr. Rotenberg in 2014, which means that Western banks could face serious consequences for doing business with him.
Barclays says it has met all of its legal and regulatory obligations.
A confidential file leak, the banks’ “suspicious activity reports,” reveals how companies believed to be controlled by Rotenberg are keeping accounts secret.
The documents, known as the FinCEN Archives, have been viewed by the BBC’s Panorama program.
- Everything you need to know about FinCEN’s document leak
Inner circle
In March 2014, the United States hit Russia with economic sanctions following the annexation of Crimea in Ukraine.
The Treasury Department designated Rotenberg, 68, and his brother Boris, 63, “members of the inner circle of Russian leadership.”
The couple had practiced and trained in the same judo gym as Putin when they were young.
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The Russian businessman and president attended judo training in Sochi last year.
In recent years, Arkady Rotenberg’s companies have built roads, a gas pipeline and a power plant through contracts awarded by the Russian state.
The US Treasury said the brothers “provided support for Putin’s pet projects” and “won billions of dollars in contracts for Gazprom and the Sochi Winter Olympics awarded by Putin.”
In 2018, the United States added Arkady Rotenberg’s son, Igor, to its sanctioned list.
The goal of the sanctions is to isolate identified individuals from the entire Western financial system.
However, the Rotenbergs appear to have continued to move cash through the UK and the US.
Art and money laundering
In 2008, Barclays opened an account for a company called Advantage Alliance.
The leaked documents show that the company moved £ 60 million between 2012 and 2016. Many of the transactions occurred after the Rotenberg brothers were sanctioned.
In July this year, a US Senate investigation accused the Rotenbergs of using secret purchases of expensive art to evade sanctions; one of the companies involved in the scheme was Advantage Alliance.
The US investigators concluded that there was strong evidence that the Advantage Alliance was owned by Arkady Rotenberg and that the company had used his Barclays account in London to purchase millions of dollars worth of artwork from him.
One report noted how “secrecy, anonymity and lack of regulation create an environment conducive to money laundering and circumventing sanctions.” US and UK auction houses “didn’t ask basic questions” about buyers of the art.
Despite the sanctions, Arkady appears to have paid $ 7.5 million to purchase René Magritte’s La Poitrine painting.
On June 17, 2014, a company linked to Arkady sent the cash from Moscow to Alliance’s account at Barclays in London. The next day, Barclays sent the cash to the seller in New York.
Closed account
In April 2016, Barclays launched an internal investigation into multiple accounts that it suspected were linked to the Rotenbergs.
Six months later, the bank closed the Advantage account after worrying that it was being used to move suspicious funds.
But leaked Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) show that other Barclays accounts with suspected links to the Rotenbergs remained open until 2017.
One of those companies was Ayrton Development Limited.
According to the files, Barclays was suspicious of Ayrton’s activities and concluded that “[Arkady] Rotenberg is the true owner of Ayrton. “
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Barclays had no comment when asked by Panorama how many accounts it suspects were owned by the Rotenbergs.
A Barclays spokesperson said: “We believe we have complied with all of our legal and regulatory obligations, including in relation to US sanctions.”
“Since filing a SAR is not in itself evidence of any actual crime, we would only terminate a client relationship after careful and objective investigation and analysis of the evidence, balancing suspicions of potential financial crimes with risk. to ‘unseat’ an innocent client. “
The Rotenbergs declined to comment.
FinCen Files is a leak of secret documents revealing how major banks have allowed dirty money around the world. They also show how the UK is often the weak link in the financial system and how London is awash in Russian cash.
The files were obtained by BuzzFeed News, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and 400 journalists from around the world. Panorama has conducted research for the BBC.
FinCEN Archives: Full Coverage; follow the reaction on Twitter using #FinCENfiles; In the BBC News app, follow the tag “FinCEN Files” View Panorama on BBC iPlayer (UK viewers only).
