UK businessman charged with helping Oleg Deripaska evade sanctions
US prosecutors seek to extradite Graham Bonham-Carter, who was arrested in London
A British businessman who worked for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska has been arrested in London after being charged by US authorities for allegedly assisting his boss in evading sanctions.
The US attorney for the southern district of New York said Graham Bonham-Carter, 62, helped Deripaska service properties in the US and attempted to move valuable artwork from New York to London, even though the tycoon was subject to harsh sanctions imposed by the US Treasury in 2018 after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
“Bonham-Carter obscured the origin of funding for upkeep and management of Deripaska’s lavish US assets, in violation of the international sanctions,” Manhattan attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.
Britain’s National Crime Agency said it had secured Bonham-Carter’s arrest following an extradition request from the US. The businessman appeared before Westminster Magistrates Court before being released on bail.
In an indictment unsealed on Tuesday, US authorities alleged that Bonham-Carter worked for Deripaska for almost 20 years, and managed the oligarch’s properties in the UK and Europe, including a house in London’s Belgravia Square.
They said he wired payments totalling over $1mn from bank accounts in Russia to the US, to pay for staff and upkeep at Deripaska’s houses, and attempted to move art purchased by Deripaska from an auction house in New York to London, by disguising its owner.
Deripaska is among a group of Russian oligarchs and government officials who have faced the hardest measures imposed on individuals by the US in response to the invasion of Crimea. He was charged by US prosecutors last month with violating sanctions by allegedly keeping three luxury properties in the country.
His assets include Russian automotive factories and agricultural producers, as well as energy and aluminium companies EN+ and Rusal.
Earlier this year, the National Crime Agency also froze bank accounts in Graham Bonham-Carter’s name, citing “reasonable grounds to suspect the money in the accounts . . . was derived from the laundering of funds belonging to Deripaska”.
The NCA had previously ensured that a mansion in Belgrave Square belonging to Deripaska and a private office in Cleveland Row — estimated to be collectively worth more than £50mn — were frozen under UK sanctions.
“Oligarchs seeking to evade sanctions rely on skilled professionals to help them hide their true ownership of assets and sustain their lifestyles,” said Steve Rodhouse, a director-general at the NCA. “This criminality exploits global financial flows and hubs including the UK, and requires a collaborative international response.”
US prosecutors said they had found evidence that Bonham-Carter was working directly for Deripaska once sanctions were in effect.
In one email obtained by prosecutors from June 2018, three months after the administration of Donald Trump announced measures against Deripaska, Bonham-Carter wrote: “Times a bit tough for my boss as sanctions have hit him from the USA so not an ideal time.”
In another email from October 2021, he wrote: “It[’]s all good apart from banks keep shutting me down because of my affiliation to my boss Oleg Deripaska . . . I have even been advised not to go to the USA where Oleg still has personal sanctions as the authorities will undoubtedly pull me to one side and the questioning could be hours or even days!!”