Indictment unsealed against Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska for allegedly violating sanctions

By Sonia Moghe, CNN

Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska has been indicted for allegedly violating sanctions, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday.

The indictment charges Deripaska with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Deripaska is not in custody at this time, a federal law enforcement source told CNN.

“As today’s charges reveal, while serving the Russian state and energy sector, Oleg Deripaska sought to circumvent U.S. sanctions through lies and deceit to cash in on and benefit from the American way of life,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement.

Three women were indicted for allegedly taking part in Deripaska’s scheme to evade sanctions, including his purported girlfriend Ekaterina Olegovna Voronina, Natalia Bardakova and Olga Shriki. Shriki, a US citizen and New Jersey resident, was arrested Thursday, according to a Justice Department press release.

Bardakova and Shriki are charged with one count of conspiring to violate and evade US sanctions. Bardakova and Voronina are charged with one count of making false statements to federal agents. Shriki also faces one count of destruction of records.

CNN has reached out to an attorney for Deripaska for comment.

Deripaska was sanctioned by the US 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.

Deripaska’s Washington, DC, home was searched by the FBI last year.

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