The US offers a ‘extreme’ amount of money to hunt down the assets of Russian businessmen

Accordingly, whistleblowers will receive up to 5 million USD if they provide data related to asset freeze, asset confiscation or criminal prosecution.

The Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, approved by the US Congress in 2021, offers rewards to those who assist the US Treasury Department in finding assets linked to corruption and the Russian government.

However, there are some caveats within the initiative that will prevent anyone providing information from receiving the reward. In particular, the amount will only be paid to those who provide information leading to the seizure, restriction or confiscation of assets. In addition, under the terms of this initiative, assets must be located in the United States, owned by a U.S. citizen, or owned by a U.S. entity.

The US offers a “huge” reward to hunt down the assets of Russian businessmen. (Photo: AP)

Final settlement decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis and then approved by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Also, illicit assets may include physical assets, for example. such as airplanes or yachts and financial assets.

However, according to anti-money laundering expert Ross Delston, such a proposal by the US government may not be of interest to those with useful information. The fact is that in some cases the remuneration will only be paid after a few years, in addition this money will also be spent on the investigation and prosecution of the case. Moreover, not everyone with any data wants to challenge the rich and powerful.

Earlier, the US Department of Justice and the US Treasury announced that Western countries had launched a multilateral task force to track down the assets of Russian oligarchs around the world.

Specifically, the US Treasury, Australia, Canada, the European Commission, Germany, Italy, France, Japan, the UK and the US have all agreed to increase cooperation within the framework of sanctions against Russia. They will collect and share information to take specific actions, such as asset freezes, civil and criminal forfeiture, criminal prosecution.

It is known that cooperation between the US government and foreign partners has brought remarkable successes. In the past three weeks alone, many ships owned by sanctioned individuals and organizations have been seized. These ships are estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

“Our sanctions, trade restrictions and other measures have caused significant damage to Russia. This multilateral task force will increase those damages even more, by triggering a concerted effort to freeze and seize the assets of these individuals in jurisdictions around the world. ,” said US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Since Europe and the US announced sanctions against Russian oligarchs, a number of superyachts owned by Russian billionaires have arrived in the Maldives, which does not have an extradition agreement with the US.

According to Thanh Binh