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Jersey finance firms tracked down and froze an additional £340m-worth of Russian assets last month, taking the running total to more than £1bn.
As part of its response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Jersey has pledged to keep its financial sanctions regime fully aligned with the UK, and to "take targeted measures to prevent Jersey services providers or structures being abused".
So far, that has included placing sanctions on high-profile individuals including former Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich and his one-time business partner, metal magnate Oleg Deripaska.
In mid-April, police raided premises in Jersey suspected to be connected to Mr Abramovich, leading the Royal Court to impose a freezing order on assets believed to be valued more than $7bn suspected to be connected to the oligarch. Questions have been raised over whether it these will impede the sale of Chelsea FC.
Shortly after the ‘saisie judiciaire’ was confirmed by the Law Officer's Department, External Relations Minister Senator Ian Gorst revealed that his department had received more than 90 reports from locally-based financial institutions in relation to Russian assets.
Pictured: Roman Abramovich (right) and his one-time business partner, metal magnate Oleg Deripaska (left) at a dinner hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2006.
Rounded to the nearest £100,000 and converted into GBP, the assets totalled £713,300,000 at the end of March.
It’s now been confirmed that, since then, 50 more sanctions reports have been submitted to the Minister by local financial institutions, taking the total to 140 by 30 April.
On that date, the reports of frozen assets, which are in a variety of different currencies and relate , received by the Minister totalled £1,057,200,000.
The Government has pledged to publish regular monthly updates on the freezes. The figure for this month will be published in June.
The Royal Court has declined Express’s requests to release the exact details of the $7bn saisie order relating to Mr Abramovich, noting that saisies in general may “make reference to details relating to persons or entities who are entitled at this point to privacy”.
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