Putin Faces Sanctions, but His Assets Remain an Enigma

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/26/world/europe/putin-sanctions-money-assets.html

Putin Faces Sanctions, but His Assets Remain an Enigma
On paper, the Russian president appears to own very little. Yet estimates put his hidden wealth well over $100 billion.
By Mike McIntire and Michael Forsythe
Feb. 26, 2022

Officially, Mr. Putin earns about $140,000 a year and owns a small apartment, according to his public financial disclosures.

But that would not account for “Putin’s Palace,” a vast estate on the Black Sea estimated to have cost more than $1 billion, with a Byzantine ownership history that does not include the Russian president but has been linked to his government in various ways. Nor would the disclosures account for “Putin’s Yacht,” a $100 million luxury vessel long tied to him in speculative news reports. (The yacht, Graceful, was tracked leaving Germany for Russia just weeks before the invasion of Ukraine.) ...

The problem for the United States and its allies is that none of these assets can be directly connected to the Russian president.

Russia’s elites, who have lived under Western sanctions for most of the last decade, have long favored complex mazes of corporate ownership to avoid scrutiny. Oftentimes, their wheeling and dealing only surfaces publicly with the leak of files from offshore law firms or secretive banks that cater to those wanting to hide their wealth.

Estimates of what Mr. Putin may secretly be worth vary widely. One of the most sensational claims came from Bill Browder, an American-born financier who was banned from Russia in 2005 after clashing with oligarchs there. He testified before Congress in 2017 that he believed Mr. Putin’s wealth could total $200 billion, an extraordinary sum that would have made him the richest man in the world at the time.

Anders Aslund, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and the author of the 2019 book “Russia’s Crony Capitalism,” pegged the Russian president’s wealth at about $125 billion. He argued that much of it could be hidden in a web of offshore havens held by Mr. Putin’s allies, friends and relatives.

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[Lovie777]

1. Putin is humiliated and that will stick with his fucked up legacy ......

in history books ever.