The Quest To Freeze "Putin's Billions"

Tyler Durden / ZeroHedge

Just over a month ago, in the latest round of sanctions against Russia, and specifically Putin’s inner circle of advisors and lieutenants, one person was singled out – Gennady Timchenko, part-owner of the Gunvor Group commodities trading company, the fourth largest oil trader in the world with over $90 billion in 2013 revenues.

This name was particularly notable because as part of the justification for adding Timchenko to the list of sanctioned oligarchs, the US Treasury said that “Putin has investments in Gunvor and may have access to Gunvor funds.” This is curious because in 2008 The Economist also linked Putin to Timchenko. Timchenko promptly sued but later dropped the case, and The Economist issued a statement. “We accept Gunvor’s assurances that neither Vladimir Putin nor any other senior Russian political figures have any ownership in Gunvor.”

Yet somehow, despite the repeated denials that Putin has a direct or indirect interest in the massive oil trading company, the Treasury department apparently knows better. As the NYT reports, “Seth Thomas Pietras, Gunvor’s corporate affairs director, said Mr. Putin “does not and never has had any ownership, direct, indirect or otherwise, in Gunvor,” nor is he “a beneficiary of Gunvor,” and “he has no access to Gunvor’s funds.” After the sanctions statement, Gunvor executives flew to Washington to meet with State Department officials and congressional aides. “We’re providing evidence but have not seen any sort of evidence from them yet and don’t know if we ever will,” Mr. Pietras said. He said the company’s banking partners had been satisfied by its explanations.

The Treasury Department, however, was not. “We remain confident that the information on the relationship between Putin and Gunvor is accurate,” said a Treasury official, who asked not to be identified in a public dispute with the company.”

Still, whether or not Putin has a stake in Gunvor is of secondary importance – what matters is that tomorrow, as part of yet another round of sanctions by the US Treasury, among those likely to be on Monday’s list, are Igor Sechin, president of the Rosneft state oil company, and Aleksei Miller, head of the Gazprom state energy giant.

Which brings us to the topic of this post, namely the quest for Putin’s billions.

Because if there was anything the Gunvor sanction escalation showed, is that the US is not afraid of going those who are in the Putin circle of not only trust but, certainly, money. To be sure, so far the American government has not imposed sanctions on Putin himself, and according to the NYT, officials said they would not in the short term, reasoning that personally targeting a head of state would amount to a “nuclear” escalation, as several put it. But that doesn’t mean the Treasury can’t go after those who are nearest to Putin, both in terms of power, and certainly money.

The problem, as the US is starting to realize, is that those alleged billions that Russia’s leader may (or may not) have access to are quite difficult to track down. There is much speculation and conjecture, but the facts are still rather slim. Here is what is known:

For years, the suspicion that Mr. Putin has a secret fortune has intrigued scholars, industry analysts, opposition figures, journalists and intelligence agencies but defied their efforts to uncover it. Numbers are thrown around suggesting that Mr. Putin may control $40 billion or even $70 billion, in theory making him the richest head of state in world history.

 

For all the rumors and speculation, though, there has been little if any hard evidence, and Gunvor has adamantly denied any financial ties to Mr. Putin and repeated that denial on Friday.

read more at ZeroHedge:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-27/quest-find-putins-billions