US charges Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska with violating sanctions

theguardian.com:

Oleg Deripaska, one of Russia’s most powerful oligarchs, who previously had deep links to British establishment figures, has been indicted by the US Department of Justice for criminal sanctions violations.

The indictment detailed a number of alleged crimes by the man who was long considered Vladimir Putin’s favourite industrialist, including an elaborate and failed attempt by Deripaska and his associates to shuttle his pregnant girlfriend to the US so that she could give birth there and secure American citizenship for their second child.

Merrick Garland, the US attorney general, said the indictment, in the wake of Russia’s “unjust and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine”, showed the US’s commitment to bring to justice those who evade US sanctions and “enable the Russian regime”.

The justice department said Deripaska, 55, and three other associates, including one American citizen, had used “lies and deceit to cash in on and benefit from the American way of life”.

Deripaska was first subjected to US sanctions in 2018, when he was designated by the US treasury as acting for a senior Russian official. Since then, the indictment alleges, Deripaska evaded those sanctions in a variety of ways, using corporate shell companies to hide his activities. From an Easter gift to an unnamed US television host, to a flower delivery to a former member of the Canadian parliament, to an attempt to shift $3m in proceeds from a US music studio to a Russia-based account, the indictment describes actions that were executed by associates on Deripaska’s behalf.

The most elaborate, however, involved Deripaska’s alleged girlfriend, Ekaterina Voronina, 33, who has been charged with making false statements to US agents during one of her attempts to enter the