WASHINGTON — Two businessmen have been accused of trying to hide a sanctioned Russian oligarch’s ownership of a luxury yacht seized by the US government in Spain last year, the Justice Department said on Friday.
An arrest warrant has been issued for Vladislav Osipov, a Russian-Swiss dual citizen who according to the Justice Ministry was an employee of Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian billionaire and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Another defendant, Richard Masters, was arrested by Spain at the request of US authorities. He’s a British businessman who ran a yacht management company in Palma de Mallorca, Spain – where Vekselberg’s yacht Tango was impounded last April.
Prosecutors claim Vekselberg bought the Tango in 2011 and has owned it ever since, although they believe he used shell companies to try to disguise his ownership and evade financial oversight. He was sanctioned in 2018. All of Vekselberg’s assets in the United States will be frozen and American companies will be prohibited from doing business with him and his companies.
The Justice Department says the men worked together to hide Vekselberg’s ownership of the yacht from the US government, even devising a false name for the ship to evade sanctions and illegally collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in US services and financial transactions .
They are charged in federal court in the District of Columbia with crimes including money laundering and violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. It wasn’t immediately clear if they had lawyers who could speak for them.