Posted 18 февраля 2022,, 07:05

Published 18 февраля 2022,, 07:05

Modified 24 декабря 2022,, 22:38

Updated 24 декабря 2022,, 22:38

It is not profitable for the West to take away villas and freeze the accounts of Russian oligarchs

It is not profitable for the West to take away villas and freeze the accounts of Russian oligarchs

18 февраля 2022, 07:05
Фото: alt.kp.ru
In the West, in recent months, the idea of "bending" Putin has become increasingly popular, blackmailing entrepreneurs close to him with the confiscation of capital and real estate. And the initiative comes from below.

But the authorities in Britain, Germany and France, for some reason, are in no hurry to stop the flow of “dirty” money from Russia.

Gennady Charodeyev

In France, no one has yet counted how many yachts, old chateaus, expensive villas or apartments the Russian rich have bought up over the past 30 years. But, according to the Nice Matin newspaper, more than 150,000 immigrants from Russia live permanently on the Cote d'Azur alone. They run hotels, restaurants, offices, shops and even a Russian-language radio.

The capitalists of all countries united

This influx of "strangers" is outraged by the Frenchman Thomas Piketty, a well-known economist in the country who specializes in "the fight against inequality". He told Le Monde how, from his point of view, the Russians should be "dispossessed".

According to Piketty, in order to "bend" states such as Russia or China, you need to target the property of multimillionaires who have become rich thanks to the authoritarian regime. After all, it is on them that the Kremlin relies, the scientist believes.

“It will be necessary to create an international financial cadastre. However, this will clearly not please the Western rich, whose interests are much more closely connected with the Russian and Chinese oligarchs than we in France think”, - Piketty said.

At the same time, the economist understands that in France the laws can be circumvented by buying real estate through nominees. Therefore, the police should be engaged in the identification and suppression of schemes, according to which the rich and their proxies form their portfolios of financial investments and real estate.

In order for the Kremlin to “bend in,” the author of an article in Le Monde suggests, it is urgent to focus sanctions on the narrow social layer of multimillionaires on which the current regime in Moscow relies. This is a fairly significant group, but not very numerous compared to the population of Russia as a whole. One could target people with real estate and financial assets worth more than 10 million euros. This is about 20,000 people or 0.02% of the adult population of Russia.

“If we target a group with a fortune of more than 5 million euros, then our sanctions will already affect 50,000 people; by lowering our "sanctions threshold" to 2 million euros. Then Western sanctions will affect 100,000 people in Russia”, - suggests Thomas Piketty.

In his opinion, it would be relatively easy for Europe to impose high taxes on Russian assets: say, for starters, at a rate of 10% or 20%. All other property may be temporarily confiscated as a preliminary measure - all these assets will be declared frozen. This will force the Kremlin to be more accommodating with the West.

“So why haven’t we made progress in this direction yet?”, - asked the French economist and tried to answer it himself.

“Wealthy people in the West, who wield enormous influence, fear that such transparency will eventually harm them as well. This is one of the main contradictions of our time. Western countries no less than Russia and China protect their oligarchs. France also uses a legal, tax and political system that is increasingly favorable to the richest people, including in Russia”, - Le Monde quotes Thomas Piketty.

Why do Kneissl and Schroeder work at Rosneft?

Meanwhile, the British authorities threaten Russia with tough sanctions in case of aggression against Ukraine. Among other new-old initiatives of local legislators is to freeze bank accounts and confiscate the property of Russian oligarchs who have settled in Londongrad.

Recently, Deutsche Bank analysts analyzed data from the Russian and British Central Banks and came to the conclusion that since 2006 more than $130 billion has flowed from the Russian Federation to the UK through secret schemes and accounts. Now London has to figure out which Russian money entered the Kingdom legally and which through secret schemes.

The cost of real estate, which is now owned by Russian oligarchs in the UK, experts estimate at 1.1 billion pounds. And if the Russians cannot prove the legitimacy of the origin of the money, London will shamelessly expropriate mansions, estates, apartments and castles - in a word, everything that it considers necessary to take away.

In recent years, the British media have repeatedly reported on the existence of a money laundering "laundromat" in London, a system by which Russians, through local brokers, can purchase expensive real estate using funds of dubious origin.

Thanks to billions of dollars invested in the UK, according to Deutsche Welle, the interests of Russian oligarchs and influential representatives of the British financial world have long been closely intertwined, and the British capital has received the ironic nickname "Londongrad".

Back in 2018, a report by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament on the capital of Russian oligarchs in the United Kingdom was published under the title “Gold of Moscow”. According to the document, the British authorities did not seriously seek to oppose the Kremlin's aggressive policy and ignored the role played by London in "concealing funds obtained as a result of corrupt actions of persons close to the President of the Russian Federation."

As Tom Tugendhat , head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament, told The Guardian recently, "it's time to turn our attention to dirty money in the UK". The politician intends to put this topic on the agenda of the parliament and find out why the government is inactive. The UK, in his opinion, has an obligation to counter money laundering, especially given the role of London as a global financial center, Tugendhat said in an interview with the BBC.

With such statements, Tugendhat is clearly not adding to his popularity in his own Conservative Party. During Boris Johnson 's tenure as prime minister, the Conservatives have received some £2 million in donations from Russian sponsors, according to official figures. For many years now, amendments to laws have not been considered, which, for example, by increasing the transparency of real estate transactions, would make it difficult to launder money for Russian oligarchs.

Transparency International, an anti-corruption organization, estimates that more than $2 billion worth of real estate has already been bought in the United Kingdom using Russian money of dubious origin.

A Channel 4 investigation shows how London brokers are facilitating millions of pounds worth of real estate purchases, paid for with allegedly illegally obtained money from Moscow.

Billionaire Roman Abramovich is known to have bought Premier League football club Chelsea, Russian tycoon Alexander Lebedev has bought London newspaper The Evening Standard . Thus, according to analysts in the intelligence of Mi-6, both oligarchs gained access to the high society of Britain. Rich Russians in London employ an army of lawyers, PR consultants and servants, send their children to British schools and get divorced in British courts. They have become an important part of London's super-wealthy stratum, attending the Ascot races, as well as charity balls and galas in the capital.

Tom Tugendhat, in an article in The Atlantic Council magazine, called it "the takeover of the European elites". He sees the rise of the Kremlin's influence across Europe, writes DW. And here's exactly what it means.

Former French presidential candidate Francois Fillon joined the board of directors of Zarubezhneft and Sibur, the former head of the Austrian Foreign Ministry Katrin Kneissl , as well as the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder , work on the supervisory board of directors of the Rosneft oil company. And the former chancellor of Austria, Christian Kern , receives a salary from Russian Railways.

According to Tugendhat, this intertwining of interests poses a "systemic threat to Europe, its values and democracy". However, no one does anything there to resist the Russian villains.

Where rich Russians “hide” money

A survey conducted by Frank RG, an analytical agency specializing in research on the financial services market, showed that Russian citizens had $315 billion in foreign banks, at least before the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2019. This is 70% of all their assets, the total volume of which experts estimate at 455 billion dollars. In Russian banks and investment companies, wealthy clients from Russia keep $140 billion, that is, about a third of all foreign assets.

BBC clarifies: rich Russians in Frank RG include those who have more than $ 1 million in financial assets. Agency analysts believe that before the pandemic, there were only about 30,000 such people in Russia.

Earlier, the Swiss bank Credit Suisse stated that more than 172 thousand people live in Russia, who have more than 1 million dollars. However, in the bank, the number of millionaires included owners of real estate.

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