Report: Feds freeze Deripaska’s assets, Upper East Side mansion

MOSCOW, Oct 8 (PRIME) – A sprawling mansion on the Upper East Side has been frozen as part of a hard-core battle between the U.S. government and Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, the New York Post reported on Monday.

U.S. officials say Deripaska, an aluminium billionaire, is close both with Russian mob leaders and Russian president Vladimir Putin — and that he is on the sanctions list because he is allegedly involved in murder, money-laundering, bribery and racketeering.

Deripaska also had President Donald Trump’s ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort — who has been convicted of crimes including money-laundering and who is cooperating with U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe — on his payroll for years.

Washington has frozen Deripaska’s U.S.-based assets, including massive mansions in Manhattan and Washington, DC. But the feds are also negotiating with him to give up some of his European-based operations to keep them running free of sanctions, Treasury officials say.

Deripaska’s US assets include a mansion at 11 East 64th St. The uber-posh residence is just down the street from fellow Ukrainian-born oligarch Len Blavatnik’s mansion, which he bought for a record U.S. $90 million earlier this year.

But although the U.S. government has frozen Deripaska’s U.S. assets, including his property, Deripaska has arranged to have the children and ex-wife of his business partner, the oligarch Roman Abramovich, live within its secure walls.

According to Treasury officials, when the government freezes assets, that means anyone who does business with a sanctioned person, and sanctioned companies, could be subject to sanctions themselves.

Abramovich recently transferred $92 million worth of property to his ex-wife, Dasha Zhukova, an editor and patron of the arts who listed her current address as 11 East 64th St., according to property records.

One of Zhukova’s good friends is Ivanka Trump. The two are so close that Zhukova and Abramovich often traveled and socialized with Trump and her husband, presidential son-in-law/adviser Jared Kushner, all over the world — from jet-setting hot spots in Russia and Croatia to Aspen and New York.

Zhukova is dating Greek shipping heir Stavros Niarchos, while Abramovich is reportedly dating Deripaska’s estranged wife, Polina Deripaska.

Deripaska bought the East Side property for $42.5 million in 2008, property records show.

The double-wide, five-story townhouse was previously owned by the late international art dealer Alec Wildenstein and his then-wife, Jocelyn Wildenstein, and it was a battleground in their divorce — allegedly where Alec threatened Jocelyn at gunpoint. Zhukova’s current mansion is also three doors down from the former Wildenstein gallery — which Blavatnik bought earlier this year, making it the most expensive townhouse in the city.

FBI agents tried unsuccessfully to flip Deripaska in exchange for information on Russian organized crime — and Russia’s aid to President Trump’s 2016 campaign, the New York Times reported last month.

Deripaska had previously worked on a “thwarted effort” to rescue an FBI agent who had been captured in Iran, the Times reported.

Representatives for Deripaska and Zhukova did not respond to requests for comment.

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