The Justice Department on Thursday charged Andrey Kostin, the CEO of Russia’s state-owned VTB Bank, with two counts of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, two counts of conspiracy to violate that law, and one count of conspiracy to commit international money laundering, the agency announced Thursday.
The DOJ also charged two U.S.-based Kostin associates, Vadim Wolfson and Gannon Bond, with similar sanctions violations: one count each of conspiracy to violate IEEPA and two counts each of violating IEEPA. Each charge carries a 20-year maximum prison sentence.
Kostin, in comments to Russian media, called the charges “groundless.”
“I have never violated any, including American, legislation, or circumvented any sanctions," Kostin said in the comments seen by Reuters. "And I urge all my partners not to look for or come up with any means of circumvention, but to build another world — independent of pressure from the political elite and U.S. military lobby."
Kostin is believed at large in Russia, the DOJ said in a press release issued on the heels of Saturday’s second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Wolfson and Bond were arrested Thursday.
The indictment, filed in Manhattan federal court, is not directly related to VTB, one of the largest banks in Russia, but to Kostin, who was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018 for illegally maintaining ownership of two yachts valued at more than $135 million and a home in Aspen, Colorado.
The alleged violations of the IEEPA took place from at least April 2018 through at least March 2022, the DOJ said.
A U.S.-based employee was allegedly paid via a U.S. bank account for work performed on Kostin's $65 million superyacht "Sea Rhapsody,” according to The Wall Street Journal. The sanctions prohibit transactions that occur within the U.S. and provide benefits to Kostin. The charges also relate to transactions supporting another superyacht called "Sea & Us" that Kostin allegedly controls.
Additionally, Kostin has been charged regarding the $12 million sale of an Aspen mansion that he allegedly controlled through shell companies. Prosecutors said Kostin purchased the home in 2010 and would visit for around two weeks each year until 2017, the Journal reported.
He allegedly sold the property in 2019 to Wolfson, founder of Russia’s Bank Otkritie. Wolfson left Russia in 2018 and changed his last name from Belyaev, according to the publication.
Charges against Wolfson and his American personal assistant, Bond, relate to taking care of Kostin’s Colorado property while hiding that Kostin owned it, the DOJ said.
The indictment was one of the five federal cases the DOJ announced Thursday against “sanctioned oligarchs” and “enablers of the Kremlin and Russian military.”
“The Justice Department is more committed than ever to cutting off the flow of illegal funds that are fueling [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s war and to holding accountable those who continue to enable it,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Thursday.
The DOJ launched “KleptoCapture,” an interagency law enforcement task force, in 2022. It has brought criminal charges against more than 70 individuals and corporate entities, the DOJ said.
