Among the assets of Russian oligarchs that have been seized or blocked around the world in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States has also imposed sanctions against a Russian oligarch whose family owns a villa on Lošinj, reports Novi List.
The US Treasury Department (OFAC) and the US State Department said in a statement that they had stepped up pressure on Russia by sanctioning many Russian rich people and their families, identifying certain assets as blocked. They say the sanctioned elites continue to provide direct and indirect support to the Government of the Russian Federation through their business empires, wealth, and other resources. As part of the operation, the assets of three Russian oligarchs, two of their spouses, three of their adult children, and six of their companies were blocked, as well as one of Russia’s largest private jets and one of the world’s largest superyachts.
These actions, according to the US Treasury Department, were taken in close coordination with the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. The targets are Russian oligarchs Alisher Burhanovich Usmanov, one of the richest people in Russia, who, among other things, owns the Dilbar megayacht worth about $600 million and recently seized in Germany, followed by Yevgeniy Prigozhin and Nikolay Petrovich Tokarev.
According to the US Treasury Department, Tokarev is a longtime Putin aide and president of one of Russia’s most important companies, Transneft, a state-owned oil pipeline company responsible for transporting 90 percent of Russia’s oil. As president of Transneft, Tokarev and his family became rich, amassing a business and real estate empire that stretches across Russia and Europe.
”Members of Tokarev’s family, including his wife Galina Alekseevna Tokareva and daughter Maiya Nikolaevna Tokareva, benefited from his proximity to Putin. Maiya Tokareva’s real estate empire is estimated at more than $50 million in Moscow, Russia alone, and includes at least three companies, the Moscow limited liability company Ostozhenka 19 and the Croatian companies Katina doo and TGA doo Katina owns top-class real estate by the sea, which includes a villa built by Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I”, could be read from the statement.
The company Katina, namely, is the owner of Villa Karolina in the bay Čikat on Lošinj. Villa Karolina, an imposing building in one of the most beautiful bays on the Adriatic, was sold by the company Jadranka dd to an Italian entrepreneur in 2003, and in 2009 it was resold to an unnamed Russian oilman for 12 million euros.
Karolina was the second villa built on Čikat, and local sources state that the villa on Lošinj is really associated with stories about love meetings between the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Francis Joseph and the actress of the Vienna Burgtheater Katarina von Schratt.
For more on the Ukraine crisis and Croatia, as well as breaking news, follow our news section.
