Former CIA officer explains how Putin uses oligarchs to hide money in the West
Alex Finley, a former officer of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, explains how sanctions that target Russian assets in the West can have a direct impact on President Vladimir Putin's personal wealth. Finley tells Yahoo News, “Putin holds very little money actually in his own name,” but adds that he maintains his fortune through funds taken out of Russia by oligarchs and stashed in offshore tax havens and companies with anonymous ownership structures.
Video transcript
ALEX FINLEY: Part of it is Putin holds very little money actually in his own name. He is a government bureaucrat with a reported salary of the equivalent of $120,000 or something like this. I don't even know. But you know, he's a government bureaucrat, humble for the people.
But so what he does is these oligarchs hold money for him, and the money is taken out of Russia. It is laundered here in the west and in offshore companies through tax havens and through different companies. And they help to set up all of the front companies, management companies. The yachts, for example, are not. They're all run by management companies. The owners are almost never the actual name of the person.
So it's a way for them to get the money out and launder it and make it clean so they can then enjoy it as they see fit. But there are reports that 98 people hold more wealth outside, hold more Russian wealth outside of Russia than all of the rest of Russia holds inside of Russia.
