The Washington, D.C. and New York City homes of a Russian billionaire with ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin are the sites of an ongoing FBI search Tuesday.
The FBI confirmed that “law enforcement activity” is taking place at the D.C. residence of Oleg Deripaska, who The Washington Post says “has not set foot on U.S. soil in years.” A spokesman for Deripaska added that a New York property was also being searched.
Deripaska once employed Paul Manafort, the former political operative and Donald Trump aide.
CBS News reports:
Manafort, a former chairman of former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, was one of several charged as part of Mueller’s probe for his consulting work in Ukraine. During federal court proceedings in the Justice Department’s case against Manafort, documents revealed he received a $10 million loan from Deripaska in 2005.
CNN adds:
Deripaska was sanctioned by the US back in 2018 in response to Russian interference in the 2016 election. The Treasury Department statement announcing the sanctions said he had been investigated for “money laundering, and has been accused of threatening lives of business rivals, illegally wiretapping a government official, and taking part in extortion and racketeering.” Earlier this year, Deripaska lost a lawsuit to have the sanctions lifted.
“In 2019, the Trump administration lifted sanctions on three companies connected to Deripaska after an attempt by Congress to block the move failed. The sanctions on Deripaska, however, remained in place,” according to CBS News.
Deripaska’s vast fortune is connected to holdings in the aluminum and energy industries.
In 2018, The New York Times reported:
[Deripaska] has sought to rebrand himself as a progressive and pro-Western business executive and philanthropist.
Mr. Manafort is among an army of lobbyists, lawyers and consultants whom Mr. Deripaska has employed around the world to help him build and protect his empire, or to try to persuade the United States to grant him visas on a regular basis.
The Times added:
The State Department, worried that he had connections to Russian organized crime, has restricted his travel to the United States for years, mostly forcing him to rely on occasional American visas or a Russian diplomatic passport. Despite the barriers, he has managed visits to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Hawaii, people familiar with his travel said.
Annoyed, and cognizant of the potential effect on his business, Mr. Deripaska has pursued winning easier and more regular access to the United States with near-obsessive zeal.
