Oligarch, Mikhail Friedman founded one of Russia's largest private banks.
So I do not believe that war would be a solution.
>> In his London newspaper, one Oligarchs son, Evgeny Lebedev pleaded with
the Russian president to quote, save the world from annihilation.
>> All of a sudden Russian oligarchs are speaking out against Russia's invasion in
Ukraine.
Now it's a delicate matter for them because many of them are wealthy because
of their close relationship to Vladimir Putin.
However, now that the United States and its Western allies have implemented
sanctions that specifically target them and really create some financial pain for
them, all of a sudden, they're kinda testing the waters,
they're dipping their toes in like, maybe war is not the way to go.
We didn't see this type of rhetoric from any of them as Crimea was
being annexed by Russia.
But now, since they're really feeling the heat, financially,
they're willing to speak out a little bit.
Now, these sanctions have eaten away at billions of dollars for
these oligarchs and I love to see it.
In fact, Germany has just seized the mega yacht of one of these
Russian oligarchs, which I also love to see.
Now I wanna give you some details about what some of them are saying.
At least two oligarchs who have been targeted by sanctions,
along with their families called for an end to the conflict,
even if they didn't explicitly call out Putin.
Now, they're terrified of Putin.
It doesn't surprise me that they wouldn't call them out by name, but
one of them says peace is very important.
That's of course Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska.
He said that in a social media post on Telegram,
negotiations need to start as soon as possible.
Now they've already held one round of peace talks which of course went nowhere,
and they're still planning to hold a second session of peace talks,
which I hope yield better results.
We want this to end as soon as possible.
Innocent lives are being lost as a result of this ridiculous and
criminal invasion of Ukraine.
However, I do wanna give you a few more quotes from other Russian oligarchs.
One says, I'm deeply attached to Ukrainian and Russian peoples and
see the current conflict as a tragedy for them both.
This is according to a Ukrainian born Russian oligarch, Mikhail Friedman,
who's Alpha Bank was hit with US sanctions last week.
He wrote this in a letter.
He continues to write, this crisis will cost lives and
damaged two nations who have been brothers for hundreds of years.
While the situation seems frighteningly far off,
I can only join those whose fervent desire is for the bloodshed to end.
Now, does he want the bloodshed to end?
Because he's genuinely concerned about the bloodshed or
is he worried about his financial interests bleeding out?
I think we know what the answer to that is.
Which is why, look, I think these targeted sanctions are important.
I think that it was the right move by Biden and our allies.
Oleg Tinkov, the billionaire founder of Tinkoff Bank.
Great name, who is currently undergoing cancer treatment,
described the conflict as unthinkable and unacceptable,
calling for states to spend money on cancer research, not war.
Now, of course, that's an argument that I could agree with, 100%.
But again, I have to keep reminding people this isn't because these billionaire,
Russian oligarchs are concerned about innocent lives being lost,
they're concerned about their own financial interests here.
Now, what do these sanctions include?
We have detailed them on the show for several days now, but
just to remind you all, the United States Treasury Department and European allies
prohibited individuals from working with the country's central bank.
Russians have been banned from the SWIFT system, which is the global financial
system, they've also been the Finance Ministry wealth fund, individuals
cannot work with the Russian Central Bank, Finance Ministry or wealth fund.
So this is again having a huge impact on Russia's economy,
a huge impact on the personal wealth for these Russian oligarchs.
So much so that they're now willing to speak out a little bit against what
Putin is doing with this invasion of Ukraine.
Already, some of Russia's ultra rich by the way, have seen their net worth's,
almost half resulting in estimated combined losses of $83 billion dollars so
far this year as the Russian economy remains in freefall.
The oligarchs by the way, are also attempting to shield their assets.
Let's not make a mistake about that.
And they're not shielding their assets now for the first time.
This has been a long running trend that we've seen with Russian oligarchs.
And by the way wealthy individuals across the globe,
they love to launder their money, they love to put their money in certain
shelters that will essentially be able to withstand or a skirt any type of sanction.
And a clear example of that is US real estate,
something that I've been talking about on this show a lot.
Something that I actually got pushed back on from people on the left who thought
it was inappropriate for me to wanna ban foreign investment in US real estate.
Let me just repeat myself right now, okay?
Whether you're on the left or not, you're wrong, okay?
If we're having, let's say a housing crisis in the United States, I don't
really think it makes sense for foreigners to park their money in residential
properties because they're trying to skirt sanctions and things like that, okay?
I don't care if it's Russian oligarchs, I don't care if it's some wealthy business
person in some other country, we need real estate for Americans to live in.
Like [LAUGH] it's such a dumb idea to allow this to continue happening
unchecked.
But yes for a long time Russian oligarchs have been storing their money in US real
estate, both residential and commercial.
I wanna give you some details on why that is.
So back before the Patriot Act of 2001 they were storing their money in US banks,
but the Patriot Act changed things.
All of a sudden banks had to provide disclosure of these
major banking transactions.
At that point people like Russian oligarchs were like all of a sudden
there kinda watching what we're up to.
We gotta find other shelters, other places to store our money.
And what do they do?
They shifted right to US real estate, okay?
And unsurprisingly Donald Trump has something to do with this as well,
which I'll get to in just a second.
But first let me give you the details on how widespread this was.
During the real estate boom of 2006 and 2007,
Russians flocked to Manhattan to buy up properties.
Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska an ally of Putin's whose name has been repeatedly
raised in investigations involving Russia and former president Donald Trump
was linked to a home in the Greenwich village neighborhood of Manhattan,
even though he had not come to the United States in years.
He was also connected to a home in Washington D.C.,
through a Delaware incorporated company.
Now why are they doing this?
Why are they putting their money in US real estate?
It is are there different laws in terms of disclosures?
Of course there are.
In fact you can buy property through all these shell companies which
essentially hides your identity, meaning even US lawmakers, even law enforcement
in the US have a difficult time tracking down who owns certain real estate.
It's all this tricky stuff that they can do, right?
In 2015 Gabriel Zucman, the director of the Stone Center on Wealth and
Income Inequality at the University of California, Berkeley,
estimated that 52% of Russia's wealth was actually held outside of the country.
And a 2017 Reuters review found that at least 63 people with Russian passports or
addresses had bought at least $98.4 million worth of property
in seven Trump branded luxury towers in southern Florida.
It found at least 703 of the owners of the 2044 units in the seven Trump buildings or
about one third were limited liability companies or LLCs,
meaning shell companies, which can mask the identities of properties true owners.
So that's the reason why they're doing it.
That's the reason why it's taking place.
And so the money laundering that happens in US real estate is certainly
a problem if you wanna ensure that these oligarchs really
suffer the consequences of these sanctions.
But there is a tiny bit of good news when it comes to these money laundering
schemes.
Believe it or not Barack Obama did implement some, not, Barack Obama,
I'm sorry, Congress.
Believe it or not, Congress was able to implement some policies that put a stop or
at least it seems like it put a stop to Russians laundering their money in US real
estate.
In 2020 Congress passed legislation to empower the Treasury Department to stop
tax evaders, kleptocrats, terrorists and other criminals from using anonymous shell
companies to hide and launder assets including those in real estate.
It requires companies, this is the problem,
to self report to the Treasury Department certain basic information
including the assets' true owners.
The information will be in a database for law enforcement,
national security officials and financial institutions.
The idea behind this is great except the self reporting.
Well, we're not stupid, right?
Like we all know what self reporting means.
Like we're really we're gonna rely on the honor system when it comes to banks and
oligarchs.
I mean, Congress knows what it's doing.
They know that the self reporting indicates that this regulation which they
passed has no teeth.
So again, the idea is good and
the way that this is being reported on makes it appear as though,
no Russians stopped after Congress passed this in 2020 totally.
But how do we know?
How do we know if it's reliant on self reporting?
So while I applaud Biden for the sanctions.
While I'm happy to see these oligarchs bleed billions and billions of dollars.
Fact of the matter is these sanctions would have been far more effective if we
didn't allow the banking industry, if we didn't allow real estate interests,
if we didn't allow the wealthiest people in this country to buy our politicians and
by our elections.
It puts everyone at a disadvantage.
It undermines our democracy,
it puts the average American voter at a massive disadvantage clearly.
And in the case of foreign policy, when we wanna implement certain sanctions,
it also puts us at a significant disadvantage.
Just something to think about as we move forward with this insanely corrupt
political system, that claims to be the best democracy in the world,
when in reality, it does treat ordinary voters assists and
as second class citizens, it really does.