Briton arrested in Spain for allegedly helping Russian oligarch evade sanctions - The Guardian

The yacht in question was used by the aforementioned Russian citizen and his family.”

The force added that the suspect and his company are thought to have earned as much as €800,000 (£707,000) for looking after the oligarch’s yacht.

“After Vekselberg was sanctioned in April 2018, Masters’s company took over the management of Tango, and conspired with others to evade the US sanctions,” the US Department of Justice said in a statement.

“According to the indictment, among other things, Masters devised a scheme to use a false name for the yacht, ‘the Fanta’, in order to hide from financial institutions that payments in US dollars were ultimately for the benefit of Tango and Vekselberg.”

As a result, the statement added, US financial institutions processed “hundreds of thousands of dollars of transactions” relating to the Tango that would not have been permitted had they known of Vekselberg’s involvement.

Matthew Graves, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, where the charges were filed, said those trying to circumvent sanctions against the oligarchs who support the Putin regime were flouting US law.

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