Editor’s note: Post has been updated to replace photo of DC property misidentified as the Haft mansion.

Sometimes you go looking for one thing and you find something else. I have a theory that’s what happened on December 13, 2018, when authorities in Britain served a search warrant on a London storage unit leased by a company connected to the Russian aluminum tycoon, Oleg Deripaska.

The warrant, made at the request of the U.S. Justice Department, was executed in search of evidence of crimes committed by Deripaska’s one-time business partner, Paul Manafort. It doesn’t appear that there was much on Manafort in that London storage unit, but U.S. authorities had obtained something else – 11 boxes and 100,000 pages of documents from the company that controls the billionaire’s global property empire.

The target of the 2018 UK raid, London-based Terra Services, controls Deripaska’s luxury properties around the globe through a network of subsidiary companies. These homes include stunning villas in St. Tropez and Sardinia, a mansion in London’s Belgrave Square estimated at £50 million, a home in Paris near the Seine, and an estate with two marble palaces in Montenegro.  

On Tuesday, FBI agents raided two properties connected to Deripaska in Washington and New York. Agents conducted simultaneous searches at the Haft mansion near DC’s Embassy Row and at 12 Gay Street in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village.  

A spokeswoman for Deripaska told The New York Times that the searches were “being carried out on the basis of two court orders, connected to U.S. sanctions.” The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Deripaska in April 2018, for “having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, a senior official of the government of the Russian Federation.”  

That senior official of the Russian government may be none other than Vladimir Putin. The U.S. government received reports that Deripaska held assets and laundered funds on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I would like to ask: did you find Putin’s money in those abandoned houses?” Deripaska asked on Telegram the day after the FBI raided the New York and DC properties, an intemperate comment that was later edited out.

The sanctions on Deripaska mean that banks must steer clear of him and his money cannot enter the United States. According to Deripaska’s spokeswoman, the properties raided Tuesday were ultimately owned by the billionaire’s relatives.

But someone was paying the bills at the Haft mansion and 12 Gay Street. The property tax bill for the Haft mansion runs more than $132,000 a year.

Did the documents seized in the 2018 London raid provide evidence that Deripaska was violating sanctions with respect to the NY and DC properties?

I have a hunch they did.

First, whatever documents were in those 11 boxes seized by officers National Crime Agency, Britain’s version of the FBI, Deripaska did not want the U.S. authorities to see them. Over the course of 15 months, Terra Services challenged the warrant in five separate hearings. One of Terra’s arguments was that the materials in the boxes had little to do with Manafort, and the few pages that did involve him were already in the possession of the U.S. Justice Department. A British judge rejected Terra Services’ arguments for judicial review in March 2020, clearing the way for the documents to be sent to America.

Second, a previously-unreported court filing contended that Deripaska takes an extremely hands-on role in running his U.S. residences — down to the location of electric sockets. According to an affidavit filed in 2016 New York Superior Court, “Deripaska exercises dominion and control over NY properties.” The document cites emails Deripaska wanted kept secret that were obtained during discovery in a lawsuit filed against him by Alexander Gliklad, former chairman of a Russian coal company.

Gliklad’s lawyers cited an email from a U.S. realtor working for Deripaska that references the oligarch’s preferences for electronics and electrical outlets near his bed in 12 Gay Street. Other emails suggest Deripaska was involved in negotiating a price in a proposed sale of a $42.5 million townhome on the Upper East Side. (The document summarizing those and other emails was improperly redacted, allowing its contents to be read by selecting and pasting them.)  

Third, and finally, the person in charge of Terra Services was involved in the purchase and management of the NY and DC properties. A few months before he was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury, Deripaska handed control of Terra Services over to Pavel Ezubov, his 46-year-old cousin.

Ezubov, the son of a member of Russia’s Duma, or lower house of parliament, set up the Delaware corporation that acquired the Haft mansion in 2006 for $15 million, according to records obtained by OpenSecrets’ Anna Massoglia.

And Ezubov’s name showed up on a New York city building permit for a $42.5 million Upper East Side Manhattan townhome connected to Deripaska. On the permit, Ezubov listed his address at a rented mailbox, located a short walk from 12 Gay Street, where property tax bills for all of Deripaska’s New York properties are sent.

It would make sense if Ezubov is managing these properties because his name shows up elsewhere in connection with properties connected to Deripaska that are being run by Terra Services. This includes Hamstone House, a 10-bedroom English mansion that was reportedly the Duchess of Windsor’s favorite property.

Euzbov’s name also shows up in connection with what may be the most expensive piece of property connected to his billionaire cousin. Villa Herakles in St. Tropez includes a 15,000-square foot main house, a guest house, a 345-acre park, two swimming pools, a tennis court, and a helipad.

Renovations on Villa Herakles cost 17.9 million Euros, according to the contractor’s website. The same contractor also worked on another home controlled by a Terra Services subisidary, Villa Walkirie, on the Italian island of Sardinia.

In a French court decision, an unidentified gardener who worked on Villla Heracles in St. Tropez from 2006 to 2009 said that his “real employer” was Basic Element – Deripaska’s holding company that comprises, Rusal, the world’s No. 2 aluminum maker.

Admittedly, the connection between Terra Services and the U.S properties raided Tuesday is not as strong as it is with the homes Terra Services controls in Europe. But what better place to sort this out then the 11 boxes of company documents that Deripaska did not want the U.S. to see?