"Let's give Putin a clear choice: Either he can (cease) subventing and enabling the bloodletting in eastern Ukraine, or we can expose the enormous global network of offshore bank accounts, dummy companies, and real estate holdings that belong to him and his criminal elite. A mafia state should be treated as such. And information should once again be weaponized as it was during the Cold War. Moscow has already gotten a head start, by leaking compromised telephone calls 
between members of our State Department and between Eurocrats and NATO-allied state officials.
between members of our State Department and between Eurocrats and NATO-allied state officials.
Investigative journalism has already yielded reams of copy on where some of the Putinist wealth is hidden, and how it got there. Much of it is in EU jurisdictions, which are subject to sanctions and/or concerted American diplomatic overtures. The U.S. Treasury Department, the CIA, and the FBI all know more about Putin's and his cronies' billions than they say publicly.
Indeed, the first suite of sanctions that the United States passed on Russia disclosed that Putin personally held assets in a Swiss commodities trader called Gunvor, in which, Treasury stated , "Putin has investments" and "may have access to ... funds." This was newsworthy, as it was encouraging of even more thorough reporting on where therumored wealthiest man in Europe stashes his cash. Barack Obama wouldn't have to try very hard to convince Putin that, if he so desired, he could feed the entire Western media industry enough scoops and exclusives to shake Russia's stock market and economy for months, if not years, not to mention set the cat among the pigeons of bickering Kremlin political factions.
, "Putin has investments" and "may have access to ... funds." This was newsworthy, as it was encouraging of even more thorough reporting on where therumored wealthiest man in Europe stashes his cash. Barack Obama wouldn't have to try very hard to convince Putin that, if he so desired, he could feed the entire Western media industry enough scoops and exclusives to shake Russia's stock market and economy for months, if not years, not to mention set the cat among the pigeons of bickering Kremlin political factions.
It's simply a myth that Russians don't keep their money in the United States anymore. According to lame-duck Sen. Carl Levin, whom I heard give a press conference at Hotel Ukraina in Kiev last April, there are "billions" of dollars parked on American soil. So why haven't we frozen that money yet? It's an open secret to federal law enforcement that the Manhattan and Miami property markets now act as end points for magically transforming black or blood-soaked dollars into pristine portfolios for the kept beneficiaries of authoritarian regimes, including and especially Putin's. No less than the former head of the Duma's ethics committee, Vladimir Pekhtin, was shown by Russian dissident Alexey Navalny to have owned millions in real estate in Florida, including a1,530-square-foot apartment at 1500 Ocean Drive . Pekhtin was also sued by U.S. contractors in the Sunshine State. Can he really be only one this easy to find?"
. Pekhtin was also sued by U.S. contractors in the Sunshine State. Can he really be only one this easy to find?"
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