Almost one year after the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, and while The EU finalizes the tenth round of sanctions to the regime of Vladimir Putin, the Spanish notaries continue to participate in asset freeze to oligarchs, millionaires and top managers Russians associated with the Kremlin.
from their offices, detect operations real estate, constitution or sales of companies, allowing their blocking through notices to Tax authorities and to the supervisory authority in matters of prevention of money laundering (Sepblac).
To this day, according to sourcesl General College of Notaries, activity has been detected in our country de 22 of these oligarchsas well as attempts to move assets by 111 natural persons, of which 31 were family members. It has also been notified about operations related to 38 real estateof which 19 were owned by the sanctioned party and many others by close relatives, sources from this body have pointed out to EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA.
So far there are a total of 1,386 people and 71 companies included in international funds blocking lists. Faced with the existence of these lists, the Centralized Prevention Body (OCP) of money laundering of the Council of Notaries, created in 2005 and dependent on the Ministry of Economy, whose technicians are responsible for analyzing the information contained in the Single Computerized Notarial Index.
It is a large database that electronically stores and classifies the content of deeds and public acts authorized by more than 2,800 notaries existing in our country. In this database, real holders of 2,094,000 limited companies126,000 public limited companies and 210,000 legal persons non-commercial, such as associations, foundations or political parties, according to data from April 2021.
Complex corporate structures
It also has since March 2012, and thanks to its role in the commercial field, with a Beneficial Owner Database, that allows public authorities to know who are the people hidden behind a society, even in the chain of complex corporate structures.
To the confront the information of their clients with both systems, notaries can reach conclusions that are reported to the Centralized Body for the Prevention of Money Laundering (OCP), which analyzes these references and reports to the economic authoritieswhich are the ones that ultimately execute the locks.
In addition to individuals included in the lists of Russian oligarchs and their real estate, the OCP has sent information on various Spanish and foreign companies related to them to the authorities in the area of money laundering prevention.
The first block has been reported, according to the same sources, on a total of 16 legal persons, 9 of which were directly related to characters on international lists and another 6 to members of their family. With regard to foreign legal persons, Spanish notaries have alerted to the activities of a total of 14, of which 7 are considered directly related to those sanctioned and another 7 to their relatives.
A total of 12 real estate, 7 of them linked to companies of people on the lists of international sanctions and another 5 related to companies of people from their family environment. In addition to this analytical work, notaries do not authorize any notarial document that includes any of the Russian natural persons or entities sanctioned by the European Union.
The detection of the movements of these people by notaries comes from the circumstances that force them to go to their offices in our country whenever they want andcarry out any real estate businessgive powers, set up companiesor carry out a recognition of signatures. All this goes through the notaries.
The work in the detection of movements of Russian oligarchs linked to the Kremlin is not new, since the OCP has been working in this area since 2014when some lists were approved coinciding with the Crimea’s accession to the Russian Federation.
Related news
With regard to the upcoming sanctions, the President of the European Commission Úrsula Von der Leyen estimates the value of the sanctions that are being finalized for the anniversary of the war at 11,000 million, and sanction is being studied to 170 Russian individuals and entities, reported Europe Press.
The latest round of sanctions was approved on December 15, after an escalation of the conflict, when the twenty-seven they expanded ‘black list’ to add 144 people and 48 entities responsible for Russian attacks against civilian targets in Ukraine. The restrictions have since extended to the Russian Armed Forces as well as ministers, governors, heads of Russian political parties and representatives of the Duma.