WASHINGTON – The U.S. government has imposed sanctions on a yacht management company and its owners, describing them as part of a corrupt system that allows Russian elites and President Vladimir V. Putin to get rich. announced the Treasury Department on Thursday.
Monaco-based Imperial Yachts, based in Moscow-born Evgeniy Kochman, serves Russian oligarchs. The Treasury Department said Mr. Kochman and his company offer yacht-related services to “Russia’s elites, including those in President Putin’s inner circle.” Imperial Yachts, Treasury said, does business with at least one sanctioned person.
The Treasury also identified four yachts linked to Mr. Putin: Shellest, Nega, Graceful and Olympia. The department said Mr. Putin used the Nega to travel to northern Russia and the Shellest regularly travels to his Black Sea palace. Treasury action did not name the 459-foot Scheherazade, a ship associated with Imperial Yachts that U.S. intelligence officials say was built for the use of Mr. Putin.
“Russia’s elites, including President Putin, depend on complex support networks to hide, move and maintain their wealth and luxury assets,” said Brian Nelson, the department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. of the Treasury.
“We will continue to apply our sanctions and expose the corrupt systems with which President Putin and his elites are enriched,” he said.
The department also announced sanctions against four Russian government officials and Yury Slyusar, the chairman of a Russian state-owned enterprise that supplies aircraft to the Russian military.
The State Department imposed separate sanctions on Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Minister, and Alexei Mordashov, a Russian billionaire. The Commerce Department announced that it was adding 71 organizations to its list of entities, in an attempt to block the Russian military from importing key technology.
Sergei Roldugin, a Russian cellist and longtime friend of Mr. Putin, described by the Treasury Department as “a custodian of President Putin’s offshore wealth.” Mr Roldugin was added to the European Union’s sanctions list in late February, days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It has been described as “Putin’s portfolio”.
Mr. Kochman and Imperial Yachts were the focus of a New York Times investigation that showed the company was at the heart of what is essentially an oligarch industrial complex, a network of companies that include German shipbuilders, French designers , high-end Italian carpenters and Spanish marinas that serve the Russian oligarchs and employ thousands of skilled workers.
According to a US intelligence assessment, a group of investors led by one of Russia’s richest men, Gennady Timchenko, who has been under sanctions since 2014, provided the money to Imperial Yachts to buy three boats: the Scheherazade, the Crescent and the Amadea. Its combined cost of up to $ 1.6 billion could have bought six new frigates for the Russian navy.
An Imperial Yachts lawyer, Simon Clark, denied that the company had any connection to Mr. Timchenko and said that “he never did business or offered services to any party subject to international sanctions.”
But Treasury officials responded to that statement in their announcement Thursday.