FBI Files $3.4 Million Complaint Over Oligarch’s Music Studio Sale

The New York field office for the FBI has filed a $3.4 million civil forfeiture complaint over the sale of a Russian oligarch’s music studio, alleging that the funds evaded sanctions imposed on him.

The complaint, which the FBI filed alongside the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and Task Force KleptoCapture, said the sale of Ocean Studios—a music studio in Burbank, California, known for producing albums by Bruce Springsteen, Avril Lavigne and Fall Out Boy—was sanction-breaking.

Oleg Deripaska, who had an estimated fortune of $2.4 billion in 2023, is the founder of the Basic Element industrial group and has been described as Putin’s “favorite oligarch.” In 2018, he had sanctions placed on him.

The U.S. Treasury Department said at the time that Deripaska received the sanctions after “having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, a senior official of the Government of the Russian Federation.” He was also accused of “illegally wiretapping a government official and taking part in extortion and racketeering.”

The Treasury also cited allegations that Deripaska “bribed a government official, ordered the murder of a businessman, and had links to a Russian organized crime group.”

Michael Khoo, a co-director of Task Force KleptoCapture, said in a news release: “As the allegations in the complaint once again demonstrate, those who have illicitly accumulated great wealth in support of lawlessness and international chaos invariably turn to the safety and stability of the United States’ rule of law principles in order to preserve their ill-gotten gains.

“It is predictable, hypocritical, and illegal. We are nearly three years into Russia’s unprovoked further invasion of Ukraine, but today’s actions show that Task Force KleptoCapture remains vigilant and fully engaged in its mission to protect the American financial system against the abuses of criminal actors.”

Newsweek has contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment via email and Deripaska via an email to his charity, the Volnoe Delo Foundation.

According to the complaint, Deripaska bought Ocean Studios in 2008 for more than $3 million. It added that between 2013 and 2018, Olga Shriki, an associate of Deripaska, ran the studio.

Shriki became a key player in the sanctions violations, according to the SDNY. In 2018, the complaint said, she opened a consulting firm called Global Consulting Services LLC and a corresponding bank account called the “GCS Account.”

According to the SDNY, between August 2018 and September 2019, the GCS Account received more than $500,000 from two Deripaska-run entities. In July 2019, per the SDNY, an account for Ocean Studios, which was held at Wells Fargo, received $69,000 in transfers from the GCS Account.

A month earlier, Shriki began to facilitate the sale of the contents of the studio for $500,000, and in December 2019, she sold the entire studio for more than $3 million.

In 2020, the SDNY said, Shriki requested that the funds from the studio sale be transferred to a bank account in Russia, but the accounting firm that received the request declined to transfer the funds. In 2021, because of the sanctions, Wells Fargo blocked the Ocean Studios account.

Newsweek has contacted Wells Fargo and SDNY for comment via email and inquiry form, respectively.

Whether Deripaska remains under sanctions when President-elect Donald Trump returns to office in January remains to be seen.

Deripaska took to Telegram following the 2024 U.S. presidential election to congratulate Trump on his victory, saying: “Trump has started to be congratulated…Good morning, new world…Oil to $50 by May, peace will be everywhere, it seems.”

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