The sister of the oligarch and former Arsenal football club shareholder Alisher Usmanov has been sanctioned by the EU after an investigation by the Guardian named her in connection with 27 Swiss bank accounts containing billions of pounds.
Usmanov’s sister, Saodat Narzieva, was among a number of relatives of Russian officials and oligarchs added to the EU’s sanctions list on Friday in response to the war in Ukraine. Usmanov has been under EU sanctions since February.
“Alisher Usmanov has transferred considerable assets to his sister Soadat Narzieva, including a single payment or gift of $3m,” the EU said. “She also held 27 Swiss bank accounts, holding hundreds of millions of dollars, which can be linked to her brother,” it said, citing findings from a recent investigation by the Guardian and media partners including the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
Last month, the Guardian and partners revealed that Usmanov’s sister appeared to have been a one-time beneficial owner of 27 secret corporate accounts at Credit Suisse, many of which were linked to Usmanov’s media, metals and mining conglomerate.
While a handful of the accounts were closed by 2016, up to 18 of the accounts were still active in recent years and could be frozen as a result of the EU sanctions. One of those accounts held as much as 1.9bn Swiss francs (CHF) (£1.6bn) and another held nearly 1.4bn CHF (£1.2bn), according to leaked documents seen by the Guardian as part of the Suisse secrets leak that revealed the owners of 30,000 Credit Suisse clients.
Credit Suisse said it was unable to comment on individual accounts because of Swiss banking secrecy laws, but confirmed that “as a matter of principle and policy, the bank applies all sanctions, in particular those issued by the EU, the United States and by Switzerland” … As we have made clear, our strategy puts risk management at the very core of our business.”
It is not clear why Narzieva, who is a gynaecologist and obstetrician in a maternity hospital in Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent, was named on accounts associated with her brother’s business empire.
A spokesperson for Usmanov has previously said the Credit Suisse data was “fake and incorrect” and said there was nothing untoward about his financial relations with his sister. They also said that Narzieva did not have “possession or control of any accounts in Swiss banks on behalf of her brother”.
A spokesperson for Narzieva said she did not know why her name would appear as a beneficial owner for any accounts at Credit Suisse and “has never held money or other assets on Mr Usmanov’s behalf. Rather, she has been in receipt of gifts from her brother. These long predate the current international crisis and recent sanctions regimes.”
“Furthermore, these gifts, while considerable in absolute terms, are of limited significance when measured against Mr Usmanov’s business interests and personal fortune,” the spokesperson said.
It is the first time that the Uzbek-born businessman’s sister has been sanctioned as a result of her relationship to her brother. Usmanov, who has been described as “one of Vladimir Putin’s favourite oligarchs” and once held a 30% stake in Arsenal football club, has also been sanctioned by the US and UK.
A spokesperson for Usmanov said on Saturday: “Mr Usmanov considers the sanctions against his sister to be an unfair, inhumane and unfounded example of retaliation against family – the act of punishing someone close to him, whom he has cared for all his life in the absence of direct heirs, and who is guilty only of being his relative.
“This type of punishment was widely used in Stalinist times, and now, unfortunately, its spectre has been revived in full force in places where the rule of law has always been considered an immutable principle.
“It goes without saying that these groundless and unjust measures that discredit the good name of the Usmanov family will be submitted to legal evaluation, and we are confident that the law and common sense will ultimately prevail.”
