Jun 29, 2022 - World

Global task force has frozen $30B from Russian oligarchs

Erin Doherty

The US Treasury Department in Washington, D.C., US, on Thursday, June 2, 2022. — The US Treasury Department in Washington, D.C., on June 2. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The U.S. Department of Treasury announced Wednesday that the multinational task force designed to freeze Russian oligarchs' wealth has blocked or frozen more than $30 billion worth of sanctioned Russians' assets and funds.

Driving the news: The task force in its first 100 days of its operation has also immobilized about $300 billion worth of Russian Central Bank assets, the Department of Treasury said.

"We continue to increase Russia's cost of its war. We remain committed to fully implementing and enforcing our economic and financial sanctions and remain vigilant against sanctions evasion and circumvention," the task force — called Russian Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs, or "REPO" — said in a statement.

The big picture: The task force was convened in March in an effort to investigate and prosecute oligarchs who have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, AP reports.

The Biden administration on Tuesday also unveiled new sanctions against entities that support Russia's defense industrial base and military units that are driving human rights abuses, Axios' Ivana Saric reports.

What to watch: "REPO’s work is not yet complete. In the coming months, REPO members will continue to track Russian sanctioned assets and prevent sanctioned Russians from undermining the measures that REPO members have jointly imposed," Treasury said.

Go deeper... Sanctions drive Russia to first foreign debt default since 1918

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Global task force has frozen $30B from Russian oligarchs

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