The Caribbean island that wants to claim a Russian super yacht

Earlier this year I asked Gretta Fenner, head of a Swiss Foundation that investigates oligarchs and financial crime, about confiscating the assets of wealthy sanctioned Russians and using the proceeds to support the Ukrainian military and rebuild the country. I was surprised by her response. ‘Confiscating assets without proof they are the proceeds of crime is akin to expropriation,’ she told me. ‘This is done by dictators not by democracies that adhere to the rule of law and international human rights. Financial support for Ukraine is vital and urgent. But if western governments undermine their own commitment to the rule of law to obtain that money, then they are violating the very principles that Ukraine is fighting to preserve.’ 

For sanctioned Russians – supporters and enemies of Putin – the threat of their assets being confiscated and sold off without being able to challenge the case in a court is akin to the Stalin show trials of the 1930s.