The U.S. Treasury Division’s Workplace of International Belongings Management has levied a virtually $216 million penalty towards a Silicon Valley enterprise capital agency that managed an funding on behalf of a sanctioned Russian billionaire with alleged monetary ties to President Vladimir Putin.
OFAC known as the case “egregious” and stated it had imposed the historic penalty after discovering the agency, GVA Capital Ltd., “willfully violated U.S. sanctions” via its involvement with Suleiman Kerimov, a gold magnate and Russian politician who has repeatedly appeared in ICIJ’s investigations.
The U.S. sanctioned Kerimov in April 2018 for being a Russian authorities official. On the time, OFAC accused him of smuggling tons of of hundreds of thousands of euros into France — together with as a lot as 20 million euros at a time in suitcases — and laundering the funds by buying property. Kerimov has not publicly commented on OFAC’s allegations, however Russia’s international ministry stated when the sanctions have been introduced that Moscow wouldn’t reply to any “anti-Russian assault and not using a harsh reply.”
Kerimov, who’s value $16.4 billion based on Forbes’ billionaire index, made a fortune shopping for up vitality belongings and main stakes in Russian banks after the Soviet Union collapsed. He has represented the Republic of Dagestan within the higher home of the Russian parliament since 2008 and was one of many few oligarchs summoned to a gathering in Moscow the day Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
In response to OFAC, GVA Capital’s co-founders, Magomed Musaev and Pavel Cherkashin, traveled to France on two separate events in 2016 to satisfy Kerimov at his property and safe his funding in Luminar, a U.S.-based LiDAR expertise firm that manufactures tools for self-driving automobiles. The agency was then reportedly instructed to coordinate the take care of Kerimov’s nephew, Nariman Gadzhiev, who was performing as a proxy via a now-dissolved Guernsey firm known as Prosperity Investments, LP.
GVA Capital invested $20 million on behalf of Kerimov into Luminar in 2016, OFAC stated. In response to the corporate’s web site, Luminar companions with main automotive producers like Volvo, Polestar and Mercedes-Benz.
OFAC stated in its assertion that GVA Capital obtained authorized recommendation shortly after Kerimov was sanctioned in 2018, warning the funding agency that any sale or switch of the shares couldn’t straight or not directly contain Kerimov. Regardless of the authorized recommendation, OFAC stated, the agency ignored the warning and engaged in a single prohibited transaction and tried three others in coordination with Gadzhiev, Kerimov’s proxy.
Musaev and Cherkashin didn’t reply to ICIJ’s requests for remark. In an interview with native information outlet San Francisco Commonplace for a 2022 story about Kerimov’s investments within the metropolis, Cherkashin, one of many GVA Capital co-founders and a former director of the agency, stated that investing in Silicon Valley is “the sacred proper of each human being on Earth.”
Based in 2011, GVA Capital is headquartered in Silicon Valley and registered within the Cayman Islands. Its funding portfolio focuses on rising tech like synthetic intelligence, robotics and self-driving automobiles.
One among its two administrators is Leonard Grayver, a Silicon Valley legal professional, based on Cayman Islands company information. Grayver advised ICIJ he had solely been a director since April 2021. He advised ICIJ he had served because the agency’s authorized counsel since changing into a director, which “considerably restricted” his means to speak about its enterprise dealings.
“The sanctions regime applied by OFAC is a vital, even essential, device in limiting Russia’s entry to worldwide monetary methods and applied sciences and hindering its means to finance additional army actions and financial improvement,” Grayver stated in an e-mail to ICIJ. “It’s incumbent for U.S. monetary establishments, and particularly for U.S. based mostly companies suppliers to extend their vigilance in making certain full compliance with OFAC’s sanctions and export controls.”
GVA Capital’s second director, Cayman Islands company information present, is Odrison Investments Restricted, registered in Cyprus. That firm was beforehand managed by one other firm managed by two Cypriot legal professionals, Andreas Th. Sofocleous and Georgios Angeli. In 2020, investigative outlet OCCRP discovered the pair could have acted as proxy house owners for a Cyprus-based insurance coverage firm with alleged hyperlinks to Bulgarian organized crime. The pair declined to touch upon the allegations in OCCRP’s story, however Sofocleous advised OCCRP the corporate adopted all authorized necessities associated to forming and administering firms.
In response to a remark request from ICIJ, Sofocleous wrote in an e-mail that “all companies supplied” by the second firm to Odrison Investments led to August 2021, and that he did not know Kerimov, “nor the individuals who represented him, nor his relationship with GVA.”
In response to the company information, Odrison Investments’ administrators are Dimosthenis Georgiou, a Cypriot company companies supplier linked to a string of Cyprus-registered firms, and Soloserve Restricted, one other Cypriot firm with Georgiou listed as its director.
Cyprus’ monetary companies trade has lengthy helped Russian nationals shift belongings abroad. In 2023, ICIJ’s Cyprus Confidential investigation revealed how the Mediterranean island’s monetary companies suppliers had helped Russia’s elite conceal their wealth as battle sanctions loomed.
In its assertion asserting the penalty towards GVA Capital, OFAC stated the Silicon Valley agency had undermined U.S. international coverage pursuits by “facilitating a sanctioned Russian nationwide’s entry to, and use of, the U.S. monetary system in exactly the way in which that his designation sought to stop.”
“This enforcement motion underscores the significance of gatekeepers in stopping sanctions evasion and highlights the dangers of facilitating such efforts,” OFAC stated in its launch.
