U.S. charges head of Russian bank with sanctions evasion, arrests 2 in alleged money laundering scheme
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Washington — The long-time president and chairman of a state-owned Russian bank was indicted in New York for allegedly evading U.S. law by owning and controlling assets including two superyachts and a luxury home in Aspen, Colorado, according to unsealed court documents.
Andrey Kostin — a wealthy oligarch who has led Russia's VTB Bank since 2002, and was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018 — and two U.S.-based co-conspirators are accused of using shell companies and laundering money to help Kostin profit from his assets, worth more than $135 million. The oligarch's alleged facilitators — Vadim Wolfson of Austin, Texas, and Gannon Bond of Edgewater, New Jersey — were arrested on Tuesday.
The trio is accused of renovating and selling Kostin's Aspen home for millions of dollars in profit and using U.S. currency to maintain his two superyachts, named Sea Rhapsody and Sea & Us, all while Kostin was barred from the U.S. financial system.
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