atst wrote: ↑Tue Mar 15, 2022 1:44 pm

down_time wrote: ↑Tue Mar 15, 2022 11:42 am Another oligarch has had his yacht taken away, this time by authorities in Spain.
The 85-metre (279ft) superyacht Valerie, worth an estimated £140m, was seized in Barcelona where it has been docked since February.

How is it possible for your assets to be seized by a foreign country when you have not committed any crime.

Whilst it's used in the article quoted above, the correct term, is for the moment "frozen" as opposed to "seized". Apparently the technical term in Spain is "provisionally immobilised". This is to prevent the owner removing the asset from the jurisdiction until a legal judgement is rendered.

Different countries have differing legal statutes but in the US the relevant one is the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act which dates to the 18th century when the US govt would seize cargo from foreign ships that didn't pay a customs or import tax. https://www.ncsl.org/research/civil-and ... -laws.aspx

Under the law, prosecutors can consider freezing the asset or seizing it, which requires a probable cause standard and potentially a warrant from a judge.

The probable cause in this situation would be the unexplained origin of Sergei Chemezov's (a former East German KGB commander and longtime friend and confidant of Putin) estimated $400 million fortune, amassed whilst CEO of three former state companies between 1999 and the present day.

The specific crime would be a breach of either the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (1977) or Money Laundering Control Act (1986), in that he misappropriated public money through corrupt activies to enrich himself and his associates. And, that he used the international banking and legal system to disguise the origin of that money and the beneficial owners of the assets which those funds were used to purchase.