The head of the forfeiture task force says he hopes the precedent will be used by others
\nThe US will soon send the first batch of funds from confiscated Russian property to Ukraine, the head of the Department of Justice (DOJ) special sanctions task force, Andrew Adams, revealed on Thursday. Adams said the move should inspire US allies to do the same, and insisted the unprecedented practice is not just possible and permissible under international law, but\u00a0\u201cimperative\u201d\u00a0given the current conflict.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re also poised to begin the transfer of forfeited assets for the benefit of Ukraine,\u201d\u00a0Adams\u00a0said\u00a0at an event hosted by the Hudson Institute, a DC think tank.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s not a silver bullet, but it\u2019s something that nevertheless makes me hopeful,\u201d\u00a0Adams said, adding that the relatively minor sums are important as\u00a0\u201ca model to our foreign partners\u201d\u00a0and to establish a legal precedent going forward.
\nUS President Joe Biden\u00a0proposed\u00a0the scheme last April, and Adams\u00a0hinted it was in the works\u00a0in September, but said Congress needed to amend several laws to make it work. On Thursday, he confirmed those changes were indeed inserted in the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill, passed by Congress in the final days of 2022.
\nThe new laws give the DOJ power to\u00a0\u201cdirect forfeited funds to the State Department for the purpose of providing aid to Ukraine,\u201d\u00a0said Adams.
\nPreviously a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York (SDNY), Adams was appointed head of Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency sanctions enforcement outfit created in March. KleptoCapture is part of the US-led Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs (REPO) Task Force, which has frozen\u00a0\u201chundreds of billions of dollars in Russian state assets and tens of billions of dollars belonging to Kremlin-linked elites,\u201d\u00a0according to the Hudson Institute.
\nAsset forfeiture is a controversial practice in US law. Proponents have\u00a0defended\u00a0it as a\u00a0\u201ckey tool\u201d\u00a0for weakening organized crime and funding law enforcement, while critics accused it of being\u00a0\u201cpolicing for profit\u201d\u00a0and\u00a0\u201cegregiously at odds with our due process rights.\u201d
\nAdams insisted that taking\u00a0the assets of Russian officials, businessmen and entities seized without trial\u00a0\u201cpossible and permissible under fundamental norms of due process\u201d\u00a0and international law. The US has to date sanctioned 1,097 Russian entities and 1,331 individuals, according to\u00a0data\u00a0from the Atlantic Council, a think tank funded by NATO and Western arms manufacturers. The total value of the US-held assets belonging to these targets is unclear.
\nWashington\u00a0and its allies have also frozen assets belonging to the Russian central bank, totaling around $300 billion, but have thus far found no legal loophole to seize these assets.
\nThe freezing of Russian assets and finances by the US and its allies is\u00a0\u201ca completely illegitimate measure, violating commonly acceptable standards of commercial and international law,\u201d\u00a0and proof to the rest of the world\u00a0\u201cthat they are thieves,\u201d\u00a0Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova\u00a0said\u00a0last week. She warned that any attempt to confiscate those funds and redirect them to Ukraine would be a violation of property rights and met with an\u00a0\u201cappropriate\u201d\u00a0countermove from Moscow.<\/p>\n