ROBE & DAGGER
Wanted in hide-seas caper
You can’t cover up the truth — not even in a luxury robe.
The US government is offering a reward of up to $1 million for a businessman who allegedly helped a Russian oligarch’s yacht circumvent sanctions — until the scheme was revealed by an order for monogrammed bathrobes.
Swiss-based businessman Vladislav Osipov, 52, is wanted on charges including bank fraud, money laundering and conspiracy for his role as a high-level employee of billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, the Justice Department announced last month.
A few months after Vekselberg was sanctioned by the US government in April 2018, Osipov instructed a boat management firm in Spain to disguise his $90 million yacht, Tango, by referring to it as the Fanta, the federal indictment stated.
At Osipov’s instruction, yacht employees used the false name to buy thousands of dollars worth of goods and services that were processed by US companies and financial institutions that would otherwise have refused to do business with a sanctioned buyer, the document alleged.
In addition to navigation software and leather magazine holders, the management company shelled out over $180,000 to a US Internet provider, the feds said.
But a smoking gun appeared on Sept. 3, 2020, with the purchase of $2,600 monogrammed luxury robes — that gave away the Fanta’s real name, Tango, the feds said.
The company ordered a second set of robes the following year, which contained explicit instructions that the ship should be referred to as Fanta on the invoice, even though the robes bore a different name, the indictment read.
The Tango was seized in the Mediterranean by the FBI and Spanish authorities shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, The Washington Post reported.
Osipov was initially indicted last year, documents showed. The owner of the Spanish management company, Richard Masters, was charged with conspiracy to defraud the US and violating federal sanctions, the outlet added.
Osipov, a former Russian citizen, may be in Herrliberg, Switzerland; Majorca, Spain; or Moscow, the feds warned.
‘Targeting facilitators’
The charges against Osipov are indicative of the government’s increased interest in expanding the reach of sanctions against Russian interests by targeting Western associates, WaPo suggested.
Last month, the Justice Department announced charges against two stateside “facilitators” who supposedly helped Russian bank head Andrey Kostin conceal ownership of a $12 million Aspen, Colo., property.
The threat of criminal charges is reportedly more concerning to Russians in the West than Treasury Department sanctions.
“What you have seen through today’s public announcements are our efforts at really targeting the facilitators who possess the requisite skill set, access, connections that allow the Russian war machine [and] the Russian elites to continually have access to Western services and Western goods,” David Lim, co-director of the Justice Department’s KleptoCapture task force, said.
“It seems to me they have gone through a comprehensive list of the oligarchs, and you can debate whether or not it’s had a meaningful impact on the Russian war effort,” Thad McBride, an international trade partner at the law firm Bass Berry & Sims, said. “Because they’re getting smarter about who’s who, they’re finding other people who play meaningful roles in these transactions, even though they’re not showing up in the headlines.”
Osipov’s attorney, Barry J. Pollack, argued the government’s application of the sanctions was “unconstitutional.” Pollack also insisted his client is not a fugitive because he never engaged in illegal activity on US soil and never lived there.