UK confiscates almost $1 million from Russian oligarch Aven

Bloomberg reported the information.

The asset manager of Russian oligarch Petr Aven has agreed to hand over £750,000 ($963,000) to the British authorities to end a nearly two-year investigation by the British police into sanctions evasion.

Thousands of pounds in cash confiscated from Aven's mansion outside London were also handed over under the “proceeds of crime” legislation.

The funds belonging to Aven, although not registered in his name, have been frozen since 2022, when the oligarch was placed under UK sanctions. The agency believes that attempts to move this money, as well as transactions after March 15, 2022, violated the sanctions.

According to the court's decision, the funds kept in British banks were confiscated after Aven's wife and his estate management team admitted that they could have been intended “for use for illegal purposes.”

Earlier, NCA lawyers reported that Aven himself does not have a bank account in the UK. However, he is suspected of using the accounts of his wife and property management companies.

The investigation concerned the withdrawal of about £3.7 million ($4.8 million) from a trust in Austria to the UK a few hours before European sanctions were imposed on Aven.

Earlier, the NCA demanded that Aven confiscate £1.2 million in accordance with a court order.

The NCA accused Aven of being a pro-Kremlin oligarch who acquired his wealth in the last days of the Soviet regime. His lawyers deny this. 

Aven is separately seeking to have the UK's sanctions against him lifted. Aven's personal beliefs put him in “opposition to the current regime,” his lawyer said.

For reference. Fridman and Aven are founders and shareholders of the Russian Alfa-Bank. After the outbreak of the large-scale war in Ukraine, they left Russia, but found themselves under EU and UK sanctions. In August 2023, they were also added to the US sanctions list.

• On July 20, 2023, President Zelenskyy instructed the Cabinet of Ministers to immediately deal with Sense Bank, owned by sanctioned Russian citizens Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven, and Andrey Kosogov.
• The next day, the Cabinet of Ministers decided to purchase all of Sense Bank's shares from the Deposit Guarantee Fund for 1 hryvnia. Thus, the bank, owned by sanctioned Russian citizens Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and Andrey Kosogov, became a state-owned bank.
• On September 5, SBU investigators served Friedman with a notice of suspicion under Part 3 of Article 110-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (financing actions committed with the aim of forcible change or overthrow of the constitutional order or seizure of state power, change of the boundaries of the territory or state border of Ukraine).
• In October 2023, the Court seized the assets of Fridman, Aven and Kosogov in Ukraine. The value of the seized corporate rights is over UAH 17 billion.
• In April 2024, the EU Court of Justice upheld the lawsuit filed by Aven and Friedman, who demanded that EU sanctions be lifted. This decision applies only to the blacklist from February 2022 to March 2023.