Conversation

Putin Faces Sanctions, but His Assets Remain an Enigma

I took a brief foray into the world of Putin’s wealth with

@mmcintire

- just published. We found wildly varying estimates of his wealth, mostly guesswork. 2/x

nytimes.com

On paper, the Russian president appears to own very little. Yet estimates put his hidden wealth well over $100 billion.

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Of course Putin’s name isn’t on any of the palaces, yachts and villas attributed to him or his relatives. Often those assets are linked to his close friends - oligarchs like Rotenberg or Timchenko. But how much of their billions - of any - “belongs” to Putin? We don’t know. 3/x

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CONTRAST THIS WITH CHINA: We don’t know the full extent of the wealth of China’s leading families, but we know a lot. The names of relatives of politburo members show up on company records in China and Hong Kong. They show up in offshore records in tax havens. 4/x

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And the names of the relatives show up in property records. Xi Jinping’s older sister and his niece own tens of millions of dollars in apartments and villas in Hong Kong. A daughter of the No3 member of the Politburo Standing Committee is also linked to a Hong Kong villa. 5/x

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Luxury Homes Tie Chinese Communist Elite to Hong Kong’s Fate (Published 2020)

We’ve been writing about this for years, without any denial from Zhongnanhai, the headquarters of the Communist Party. Here’s one example by

@jotted

and me. 6/x

nytimes.com

Three top leaders of China’s Communist Party have relatives who own assets in Hong Kong, including more than $51 million in luxury real estate, a New York Times investigation shows.

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As I said, we know a lot. Hundreds of millions attributed to the extended family of Xi Jinping. Billions owned by the family and biz associates of former premier Wen Jiabao as

@DavidBarboza2

reported. Millions more to the families of other leaders. Documented. Bulletproof. 7/x

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Both China and Russia are authoritarian states. But China is in a different league than Russia. There are anti war protesters in Moscow. Plucky Russian papers write exposes of oligarchs’ wealth. Russians can use Facebook. There is an OPPOSITION leader, albeit a jailed one. 8/x

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China has no political opposition. Its internet is censored, street protests against the central government are exceedingly rare. There is no free press. And yet, to this day, any Chinese citizen can document the wealth of Xi’s relatives in online searches. 9/x

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I don’t know if there’s any meaningful insight we can draw from this but I do find it fascinating that in a hard authoritarian country like China one can authoritatively document the fortunes of leaders but in Russia, authoritarian but far more open, it is a murky mess 10/x

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Of course, a Chinese reporter can document the assets of Xi’s relatives but would swiftly feel the wrath of China’s security services if they dared try to write anything about it. Only foreign reporters like me (now safely in NYC) have that freedom. 11/x

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So you could say that in Russia, where the (much maligned) independent press does try to hold Putin’s government accountable, the response is to make his fortune unaccountable. In China, where the public cannot hold top leaders accountable, there’s less of a reason to hide. END

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Pandora papers reveal hidden riches of Putin’s inner circle

PS: I would add that there has been fabulous journalism, much of it stemming from the

@ICIJorg

@SZ

leaks like Panama Papers and the Pandora Papers showing that people close to Putin have unexplained wealth. An example:

theguardian.com

Alleged lover and others linked to Putin have all come into extreme wealth. But is the money really theirs?

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this will be good

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能坏多少台点钞机？

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加油，

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From a writer at Bloomberg News...

Quote Tweet

Saleha Mohsin

@SalehaMohsin

· Feb 26

Germany “is working flat out on how to limit the collateral damage of decoupling from SWIFT in such a way that it affects the right people,” its govt said in an emailed statement “What we need is a targeted and functional restriction of SWIFT"

Show this thread

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Tsk tsk NYT reporters. Doing what they know best. Spreading rayta.

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I see this flavor of article a lot: trying to track down Putin’s wealth. Usually, it’s just hearsay and speculation—like this Twitter thread. Maybe there’s no there there, and Putin isn’t hoarding vast wealth, despite what you journalists claim.

Julian

@mjmargulis

Youre completely shot.

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This is an interesting thread. Thank you.

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desire for western goods + proximity to western finance systems?

bongumenzikasanele

@asepheleleorphe

Thread by @PekingMike on Thread Reader App

i mean, half of the furniture from the black sea palace is from italy. im sure this is simplistic.

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unroll

Salam, please find the unroll here: threadreaderapp.com/thread/1497620 Have a good day. Robot face

threadreaderapp.com

@PekingMike: THREAD: I have been documenting the assets of China’s top leaders for 10 years now. It is not easy. And it is getting harder. But it is a walk in the park compared to tracking...

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If Putin was into personal enrichment, he would be loved like Yeltsin.

pjs

@11pjs81

Feb 27

Funny how these guys always talk about Putin being richest in world but can never actually find the wealth.

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Seeing authoritarian wealth accumulation from Russia/China stashed away in Western countries just goes to show the double-sidedness; centralizing power and rhetoric domestically while knowing that the only way to solidify wealth is outward, amongst the ‘adversaries’.

Zienata Silviestu

@silquantum