“Great Britain introduced sanctions against eight individuals accused of large-scale international corruption”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
Among them are Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash and his wife Lada Firtash, as well as Angolan and Russian citizen Isabel dos Santos, owner of a billion dollar fortune, and Latvian businessman and politician Aivars Lembergs.
“Dmytro Firtash, a notorious oligarch who extracted hundreds of millions of pounds from Ukraine through corruption and control over gas distribution and hid tens of millions of pounds of ill-gotten gains in the UK real estate market alone. The UK has also imposed sanctions on his wife Lada Firtash, who profited from his corruption and owns British assets on his behalf, including the old Brompton Road tube station building, as well as Denys Gorbunenko, a British financial “fixer” who facilitated Dmytro’s corruption Firtasha”, the message says.
In 2014, the American prosecutor’s office accused Dmytro Firtash of bribery. Since then, the oligarch has resisted US attempts to extradite him from Austria, where he lives most of the time.
The US accuses Firtash and five other people of conspiring between 2006 and 2010 to pay at least $18.5 million in bribes to Indian officials to buy a titanium mine in India. The Ukrainian tycoon allegedly intended to sell part of the products to the American aerospace giant Boeing.
He was indicted in June 2013 and then arrested in Vienna at the request of the United States in March 2014. Firtash was later released on bail of 125 million euros ($136 million).
Sanctions were also introduced against Ivars Lembergs. He is the former mayor of the city of Ventspils, a populist politician, sentenced to five years in prison in Latvia on charges of corruption. He himself called his persecution political.
Isabel dos Santos is the daughter of the long-term president of Angola, Jose Eduardo dos Santos. She became the first female billionaire in Africa. In Angola, charges of corruption have been brought against her. According to her, she has Russian citizenship from birth (initially it was Soviet – she was born in Baku in 1973).
“Today’s sanctions demonstrate the importance of working in partnership with other countries to tackle serious corruption and support their efforts to tackle the devastating effects of corruption and illicit finance,” the UK government said.
They also complement the wider work of the International Anti-Corruption Coordination Center (IACCC), which provides specialized support to law enforcement agencies in investigating corruption and misappropriation of national assets. The IACCC currently provides investigative assistance in 42 countries.