Ukraine Seizes Underground Warehouses Of Russian Oligarch With $54M Worth Of Hidden Iron Ore

A Ukrainian court has seized underground warehouses owned by Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov containing "Ukrainian iron ore."

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which provided materials in the case, said the warehouses that were discovered in several seaports in Ukraine contained more than 160,000 tons of hidden iron ore worth almost 2 billion Ukrainian hryvnias ($54 million), Ukrainska Pravda reported.

"As a result of investigative and operational actions together with the detectives of the Financial Investigations Service, the location of the underground warehouses of the Russian Federation, where more than 160,000 [tons] of Ukrainian iron ore were stored, was established," the SBU said in a statement. "The hidden raw materials were discovered on the territory of several seaports of Ukraine."

The SBU said the uncovered iron ore belonged to a company owned by Usmanov, who is named by Forbes as the seventh-richest man in Russia and is included in the Kremlin's inner circle.

The SBU said operational information showed that Russians tried to illegally transport the minerals to Russia, where they would be used by the country's metallurgical industry and the military-industrial complex to produce equipment for the Russian troops.

However, Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office said that the materials were not supposed to be transferred abroad.

Instead, Ukrainian prosecutors said that "a legal entity registered in a [European Union] country, together with Russian companies affiliated with" Usmanov, shipped the goods to Ukrainian businesses without paying customs payments and taxes, Kyiv Independent reported.

Ukrainian prosecutors estimated that Ukraine lost $3.2 million because of Usmanov's illegal transactions.

After Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February, Usmanov was among those slapped with sanctions by the Ukrainian National Security Council, the U.S. and the E.U.

The West imposed a slew of sanctions against Russia and some of the members of Russian President Vladimir Putin's inner circle as a result of the invasion.

In March, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the Treasury Department imposed sanctions targeting some of the immediate family members of Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg and several members of the Russian State Duma.

The State Department restricted the visas of 893 Russian Federation members and 31 foreign government officials for their alleged support of Russia's military offensive against Ukraine.

The Biden administration also prohibited Russia from making debt payments using foreign currency held in U.S. banks.

Major Russian banks were removed from the international financial messaging system SWIFT, which caused delays in payments for its energy and agricultural exports.