Numerous Russian oligarchs and politicians are under sanctions in the western world. Since the invasion of Ukraine began, Russia’s richest people in Europe and the US have had to hide their accumulated wealth well or face official action ranging from freezing valuable possessions to confiscation.
Alisher Usmanov, a close confidante of Russian President Putin and one of the richest men in the country, has been the focus of military action since the beginning. Again and again, villas, cars and ships that are connected to him are the target of investigations. Including one of the largest private yachts in the world, the 156-meter-long “Dilbar”, which Usmanow had brought to Hamburg for repair work in autumn 2021.
According to research by NDR, WDR and SZ, investigators came across 30 paintings with a total value of millions in the course of investigations on the ship in a Hamburg forwarding agency near the airport. Among them is said to be a work by the French-Russian painter Marc Chagall.
According to the reports, the paintings come from the hold of the mega-yacht and were professionally taken off board and stored when it arrived in the autumn, i.e. before the start of construction work. The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reports that a Hamburg art consultant planned the organization and implementation. He is now cooperating with the authorities and is said to have handed over “extensive documents and ‘relevant information'”.
This could be expensive for Usmanov, because the sanctioned oligarch would have had to report all assets in Germany under the “Sanctions Enforcement Act” – including all works of art, of course.
The SZ writes that Usmanow, as in all other cases in which ownership has to be clarified, denies any connection to the works. The scheme is well known: the pictures, the yacht and also the villas on Lake Tegernsee belonged to foundations in which Usmanow was not involved.
The oligarch’s spokesman has been repeating this mantra since the beginning of the year. In fact, Usmanov is dividing assets into complexly nested company and family networks. The “Dilbar” is a good example of this, because officially the yacht – behind the veil of some shell companies – belongs to his sister Gulbakhor Ismailova. It is also on the EU sanctions list.
Should Usmanov be indicted, “it would be the biggest tax criminal case in German economic history,” writes the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. According to information from the daily newspaper, investigators assume that Usmanow owes the state more than half a billion euros in income and gift tax.
This enormous sum is not only due to the paintings that have now been discovered, but also to valuables that investigators discovered in villas on Lake Tegernsee in late summer. There, the officials found, among other things, four Fabergé eggs, which later turned out to be professional replicas. These are not worth the double-digit millions of the originals, but according to the public prosecutor’s office they have a “not inconsiderable value” – specifically there is talk of a six-digit value per egg.