Wealthy Russians Seek New Havens amid Sanctions, Legal Pressure

On March 11 in the tiny Pyrenees principality of Andorra, local authorities raided Banca Privada d’Andorra as part of an internationally coordinated investigation. The bust, which triggered the collapse of a Spanish subsidiary of the bank the next day, pursued funds held by individuals and state-affiliated entities engaged in criminal enterprises. Chief among its targets were Russian investors, including people reputed to be underworld figures with connections to the Kremlin.

Andorra is far from the only haven for Russian private wealth to face scrutiny in recent years. During the recapitalization ofCyprus在2013年的银行，在危机之后，看到一个高达40％的危机对未保险的存款施加了高达40％，据报道，大多数无人防守的基金都是俄罗斯起源，通过岛上的壳牌公司过滤。这种不必要的关注推动了富裕的俄罗斯人来寻找国外藏钱的新地方。

Meanwhile, geopolitical events have made it tough for non-Russian banks to take on Russian clients. In March 2014, Western governments led by the U.S. and the European Union issued sanctions against the Russian Federation in response to its annexation of Crimea and subsequent confrontation in eastern Ukraine. These measures included a freeze on the foreign-held assets of dozens of former and current high-ranking Russian officials and businesspeople with close ties to the administration of PresidentVladimir Putin.

在新世纪的第一个十年，俄罗斯商业领导人在迪拜到伦敦到迈阿密的金融中心的投资顾问和房地产销售人员的主要目标。2000年普京举行总统的崛起与克里米亚的紧张局势升级，“奥里格彻”一词成为西方与游艇，豪宅和私人专业的职业运动队中的代名词。财富经理才非常乐意提供帮助。

“Five years ago the prevailing stereotype was that wealthy Russians were the easy bid whenever you had a high-priced asset that you wanted to sell,” says Richard Taglianetti, senior managing director at Corinthian Partners, a New York–based investment bank. With the combination of the Ukraine crisis and a slide in oil prices battering the ruble, affluent Chinese investors have usurped the role of most coveted international client group among U.S. wealth managers, notes Taglianetti, who oversees selection of alternative investments for his firm’s family-office and ultrahigh-net-worth clients.

Advances in tracking technology have made the latest sanctions against Russian individuals much swifter than in the past. Banks in Europe, developed Asia and North America were quick to report affiliations with anybody singled out by regulators. “From a big-picture standpoint it represents a real culture of compliance on an international level,” says Felicia Smith, vice president and senior counsel for regulatory affairs at Financial Services Roundtable, a Washington-based advocacy group representing the 100 largest U.S. financial institutions. “In years past there was often an attitude that ‘only the U.S. cares about this’ when it came to enforcement measures,” Smith adds. “Today it is a very, very different story.”

史密斯引用了政策制定者之间的更大合作，加上银行和经纪人面临的更高的声誉风险，这些风险在全球媒体时代的国际理解中蔑视国际理解，这是私人资本不能再匿名的两个原因。

Besides straining relations between Western and Russian financial institutions, sanctions have made Russians less confident in foreign banks. “We all understand that our Western partners want to have deals with us, but we all have to wait until the sanctions will end,” says Kirill Yurin, a vice president in the investment brokerage division at Moscow-based conglomerate Regions Group of Cos. and a former government relations adviser with the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament.

The rising importance of Asia, particularly中国为贸易和金融可以说服许多俄罗斯人转向远离西方金融服务，尤林说：“如果我们的新东方合作伙伴会给我们更好的条款，那么我们将转向他们的市场。”随着中国商业贷款人在俄罗斯制裁之后公开推动市场份额，有信号在中国主要银行的私人客户团体遵循类似的剧本。

一位要求不透露姓名的俄罗斯国家经验resses concern about holding assets in the West, despite the fact that he isn’t targeted by sanctions and has no ties to authorities. “No matter who you are, if you hold your money in dollars, francs, pounds or euros overseas, a government can simply confiscate your account and hold you [liable] to provide proof that you are doing nothing wrong,” he says. Such suspicions make it likely that wealthy Russians will seek out friendlier homes for their rubles.