Petr Aven has connections to Vladimir Putin
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)The wife of a sanctioned oligarch is paying his £140,000-a-month “basic needs” despite having no obvious wealth of her own, a court has been told.
The disclosure came as District Judge John Zani rejected a bid by art lover Petr Aven to lift a freezing order on two accounts holding about £1.5 million suspected of being used to breach sanctions imposed because of his connection to Vladimir Putin.
The orders were imposed after the National Crime Agency claimed that the accounts had been used on behalf of Mr Aven to buy and sell luxury cars and other transactions in criminal breaches of the sanctions imposed upon him.
Mr Aven, who has a £300 million art collection and estimated wealth of more than £4 billion, has denied the allegations and was seeking to have the freezing orders removed. But Judge Zani said he was refusing because officers should be given more time to conduct what they have described as a “complex” inquiry. The judge revealed that Mr Aven’s wife is under investigation over how she has been paying the oligarch’s living costs since he was placed under sanctions on March 15.
“Ekaterina Kozina is said to have been funding Mr Aven’s basic needs since March, but there is no information to suggest that she had independent funds to meet Mr Aven’s monthly outgoings of £140,000,” the judge told a hearing at Westminster magistrates’ court.
The frozen accounts are corporate ones used by Mr Aven to pay for the running of Ingliston House, his multimillion-pound Surrey home.
The court had heard that he had been given permission by the Government’s office for sanctions implementation to use some of the money to pay his utility bills and a number of other expenses.
