Searches in Swiss bank UBS conducts in Germany because of Russian oligarch

This was reported by the publication Spiegel

The offices of the largest Swiss bank UBS (in particular in Frankfurt am Main and Munich), are being searched in the case of sanctioned Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov. They are conducted by officers of the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany (BKA) on behalf of the Frankfurt am Main Prosecutor's Office. The reason is the collection of evidence in a money laundering case. The bank's employees are not charged with anything. The background of the situation is an investigation against multi-billionaire Usmanov on suspicion of money laundering, violation of foreign trade legislation and tax evasion.

In September, German investigators raided Usmanov's villas on Lake Tegernsee and seized documents. Later there was a search on one of the largest megayachts in the world, Dilbar, which belongs to Usmanov (although he denies this). During searches on the yacht, investigators confiscated 30 paintings with a total value (including the work of Marc Chagall), according to preliminary estimates, five million euros.

Alisher Usmanov came under sanctions in February, immediately after the start of a full-scale war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. According to the SPIEGEL publication, a close person to Putin, Alisher Usmanov, evaded paying taxes on income and gifts totalling about 555 million euros between 2014 and 2022. The authorities consider the entrepreneur a taxpayer in Germany since he has lived mainly in Tegernsee since 2014 and had a residence there.