Monaco has begun weeding out wealthy Russians from its banks
Monaco has launched a large-scale audit of the principality’s largest banks and financial companies in an effort to be removed from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) gray list.
For two years in a row, the local regulator, AMSF, has published the results of audits revealing client files in which the origin of funds, criminal ties, suspicious transactions, and sanctions-related and political connections were not adequately verified. About one-third of the problematic client files are linked to Russia.
The AMSF withholds names but provides enough details to identify some of the clients. In one of the UBS Monaco files, the bank explained a client’s wealth as gifts from her brother, who gave her $70 million and several properties. The woman worked as a gynecologist, and her brother, who had served time in a criminal case, was a major industrialist and turned out to have ties to an English soccer club. The details point to Alisher Usmanov’s sister, Saodat Narzieva. OCCRP previously revealed that Narzieva was the beneficiary of 27 Credit Suisse accounts, one of which had a balance exceeding $2 billion. UBS closed her account in March 2025.
Among Julius Baer’s clients was Viktor Fedotov, the former head of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium. The Pandora Papers revealed that Fedotov was a hidden co-owner of VNIIIST, a contractor for Transneft. In an internal Transneft report, VNIIIST was accused of siphoning off approximately $140 million. Through an offshore company linked to VNIIIST, Fedotov received at least $98 million and purchased a Bombardier jet for $34 million, according to The Guardian. The bank reported its suspicions about the client only a year after grounds for them first arose. Later, Julius Baer terminated its relationship with Fedotov.
A client of Guardian Management in Monaco was Leonid Novitsky, the former first deputy general director of Rosagroleasing and the brother of former Minister of Agriculture Olena Skrynnyk. Back in 2015, Swiss prosecutors investigated a money-laundering case involving Novitsky, his wife, and Skrynnik. It was linked to the alleged embezzlement of over 1 billion rubles from Rosagroleasing. Guardian later downgraded Novitsky’s risk rating, though AMSF found no justification for this decision.
In documents from the corporate service provider ICS, we were able to identify Alexei Fedorichev, the owner of Fedcominvest. In 2024, Italian authorities, at Ukraine’s request, seized 41 million euros in assets linked to him. In Ukraine, the businessman was suspected of corruption, fraud against a state-owned company, and money laundering. The estimated losses exceeded $60 million. AMSF’s claims against ICS concerned how the company accounted for negative information about the client.
Bloomberg reports on this.
