Last Friday, the European Union Council decided to extend for another six months, until September 15, 2025, The restrictive measures and sanctions “against those who undermine or threaten territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.” This decision allows Spanish notaries to continue channeling the information to Maintain the freezing of assets- Banking goods and accounts– of about twenty oligarchsMillionaires and senior Russian executives related to the Kremlin, as well as more than a hundred of its testaferros.
The person responsible for detecting these assets is the Centralized Prevention Organ (OCP) of the money laundering of the Notaries Council, created in 2005 and under the Ministry of Economy, whose technicians are responsible for analyzing the information contained in a registration of great informative value such as the Single information notarial index.
In this file they are detected real estate operations, constitution or sales of companies, allowing its blockage by notices to the Treasury and the supervisory authority in the field of capital laundering prevention (SEPBLAC). On the valuation of all these assets, from the OCP it is answered that it has not been carried out by this body, since in many occasions it is about societies to which to grant a specific value depends on many factors.
After three years of war, OCP sources point out that current data blockages are very similar to those that existed after the first anniversary of the Russian invasion. The activity in our country of 22 individuals who could be described as oligarchs was detected Because of the high level of economic power they concentrate, as well as attempts to move their assets by just over a hundred people (111) than about thirty are their relatives. Once their assets and accounts froze, The blockade must be maintained until the EU makes a decision in this regard, Sources of this agency point to this newspaper. For this reason, precautions on operations referring to about 40 properties are also maintained throughout Spain related to these people and their families
The bulk of the activity carried out by the prevention body, however, took place in the first months of imposition of European sanctions, although Surveillance is maintained. Out of radar there were characters like Mikhail Fridman, former Dia Supermarkets, or Russian banker and former minister Petr Aven, after in April last year the General Court of the European Union It should be erased from the list of sanctions because there was no proof to demonstrate material support for the invasion of Ukraine.
2,400 on the lists
Last week this work of Spanish notaries was supported by the Council of the Union, which last Friday agreed extend for six months the restrictive measures that remain in force for almost 2,400 people and entities to which it is applied, in addition to immobilization of assets, restrictions for traveling and prohibition that economic resources can be put at your service.
The unique informatized notarial index that is used to make the blockages is a database that electronically stores and classifies the content of the deeds and public minutes authorized by the more than 2,800 existing notaries in our country. In this base they were identified accredited, according to the latest balances made, real holders of 2,094,000 limited companies, 126,000 corporations and 210,000 non -commercial legal persons, such as associations, foundations or political parties, according to April 2021 data.
To this is joined by Real holder database, that has been operating since 2012, and that allows public authorities to know who the hidden people are after a society, even in the chain of complex corporate structures. By confronting information with both systems, notaries can reach conclusions of which the Centralized Capital Lighting Prevention Organ (OCP) account. It is this organ, ultimately, that Analyze these references and report to the economic authorities, which are the ones that ultimately execute the blockages.
The work in detecting Russian oligarchs linked to Kremlin is not new, in any case, since the OCP works in this area since 2014, When lists were approved coinciding with the Crimean adhesion to the Russian Federation.
