British Man's Sanctions Violation with Deripaska's Properties

⏰ For a British man who manages sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska’s residential properties, it’s sanctions violation time.

🇺🇸Reuters reports that Graham Bonham-Carter, was arrested in the U.K. on charges of violating U.S. sanctions.

🗣In a statement by the U.S. Department of Justice the U.K. national was arrested this week for conspiracy to violate U.S. #sanctions imposed on Deripaska & wire fraud in connection with funding U.S. properties purchased by Deripaska and efforts to expatriate Deripaska’s artwork through misrepresentations.

💰The indictment alleges, after Deripaska’s designation, Bonham-Carter engaged in over $1 million of illicit transactions to fund real estate properties in the U.S. for Deripaska’s benefit.

🏚Around 2005 and 2008, Deripaska purchased 3️⃣ residential properties, two in New York City and one in Washington, D.C.

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🤫The properties were managed by a company named Gracetown Inc. After #ofac imposed sanctions on Deripaska on April 6, 2018, Gracetown Inc. continued to manage the properties for Deripaska’s benefit.

📃Shortly after Deripaska’s designation, he instructed Bonham-Carter to set up a new company for managing Deripaska’s properties.

📧In 2018, Bonham-Carter wrote in an email that “OVD [i.e., Deripaska] wants me to set up my own company to run the [Belgravia Square] house and to possibly include Japan, Italy, China and more.”

📅Less than two months later, in 2018, Bonham-Carter incorporated GBCM Limited. 🗽New York Magazine reports that one of the NYC properties is located at 12 Gay Street and has a storied history to include:

💃Once owned by former NYC mayor Jimmy Walker, who bought it in the 1920s for his mistress.

🍻Was a speakeasy called the Pirate’s Den, during Prohibition.

🤠Once home to Frank Paris, a puppeteer who is said to have designed the original Howdy Doody in the building’s basement.

👻Legend also indicates the house is haunted: a ghost called the Gay Street Phantom, apparently lived there for years.

⛔️While Ghosts or international sanctions could not deter them from the purchase, sanctions.io a provider of Smart AI-powered Sanctions & PEP Screening for your AML, KYC & Trade Compliance screening needs, is assists financial institutions & global corporations avoid scary sanction violations.

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👮🏽♂️The investigation was coordinated through DOJ’s Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency #lawenforcement task force dedicated to enforcing the sweeping sanctions, export controls and economic countermeasures that the U.S., along with its foreign allies, has imposed in response to Russia’s unprovoked military invasion of #ukraine.