“Oligarchs are laughing their heads off”
Sanctions enforcement agency poorly staffed
May 4, 2024, 2:41 p.m
The Central Office for Sanctions Enforcement is actually supposed to get on the trail of oligarchs. However, the authority has a problem: not even half of the planned positions have been filled yet, and the number of specialist staff is limited.
The agency responsible for enforcing sanctions against Russian oligarchs is having fewer and fewer staff. This emerges from the answers to a small query from left-wing MP Christian Görke, which is available to T-Online. Accordingly, only 41 of the 92 planned positions in the Central Office for Sanctions Enforcement (ZfS) have been filled. That is even fewer than last summer, when 58 positions were filled.
The report states that the fight against the Russian oligarchs is going much worse than the ministry had planned. This becomes even clearer when considering the qualifications of the employees. The Ministry of Finance’s response to the Left’s request shows that the number of financial investigators has decreased significantly. While there were 47 last year, there are currently only 24 – almost halving the number of specialist staff at this point. However, there is also some positive news, it goes on to say: According to the report, there are no longer just four people working to accept suspected cases of violations of sanctions law, but five.
The central office for sanctions enforcement is located in the Ministry of Finance and is intended to prevent sanctions from being circumvented using disguised structures. According to T-Online, there were 65 indications of possible violations of the sanctions regulations in the first half of last year, and only 30 more have been added since then.
“The investigations are time-consuming”
There are no statistics yet as to how many of the tips have led to the discovery of violations of the sanctions measures: “The investigations are time-consuming and are largely still ongoing.” However, there should be a report soon, as required by law. A letter to Görke from the Ministry of Finance sounds optimistic: “Given the background of building up an authority within a short period of time and the demanding skills profile of the employees to be recruited, the recruitment process so far can be seen as challenging, but overall positive.”
Görke comes to a different assessment: “Oligarchs and financial criminals are laughing their heads off at the central office,” he tells T-Online. And further: “It was a good idea to create the central office for sanctions in order to finally get the chaos of the authorities in the implementation of sanctions against Russian oligarchs under control. However, the implementation is a complete disappointment.”