Trump suspends ‘Russian oligarch’ hunt
The US Justice Department under Attorney General Pam Bondi has disbanded Task Force KleptoCapture, a unit created in 2022 to enforce sanctions against Russian oligarchs, The Guardian reported on Thursday citing an internal memo.
Task Force KleptoCapture was launched during the Biden administration following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. It was tasked with tracking and confiscating assets belonging to Russian businessmen and officials targeted by Western sanctions.
According to the DOJ, since the founding of the task force, it has contributed to the seizure of some $700 million in assets belonging to Russian businessmen and has accused more than 70 individuals of violating export controls against Moscow.
Bondi announced the decision to shut down the task force and reallocate its funding to combat drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations in a memo issued on Wednesday, according to The Guardian. The Justice Department has argued that resources should be focused on domestic and border-related issues rather than targeting foreign elites.
“This policy requires a fundamental change in mindset and approach,” Bondi was quoted as saying in the memo, where she emphasized that the administration prioritizes addressing what she described as more immediate security threats.
The decision comes amid broader debates about the handling of Russian state and private assets by the US and its allies. Since 2022, Washington and the European Union have frozen an estimated $300 billion in Russian central bank reserves along with billions in private assets. Western officials have proposed redirecting some of these funds to Ukraine, but legal concerns have slowed such efforts.
Moscow has repeatedly denounced these measures, calling them illegal and equating them to theft. Officials have warned that the seizure of private and state-owned assets could lead to retaliatory measures against Western investments in Russia.
“The theft of Russian assets is a gross violation of international law,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, responding to past US and EU asset freezes.
Nevertheless, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the country’s economy has been able to withstand unprecedented Western pressure, noting that it has encouraged the development of domestic industry.
Trump has previously signaled a more conciliatory approach toward Russia, hoping to improve relations with Moscow. Despite this, Russian officials have remained cautious about whether Trump’s return to office would lead to significant policy changes. Moscow has expressed skepticism about the extent to which the new administration will deviate from previous US policies on sanctions and financial restrictions.
