WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th July, 2023) Andrew Adams, the head of the KleptoCapture task force responsible for tracking and seizing the assets of Russian businessmen, announced in a LinkedIn post that he resigns after ten years of service at the Department of Justice.
"After ten years, today is my last day at the Department of Justice. It was a privilege to cap this time in service of the Department's response to the war in Ukraine and in support of the amazing people in our National Security Division," the post said on Thursday.
In March 2022, the Justice Department launched the KleptoCapture Task Force to trace and seize assets of Russian businessmen in response to Moscow's special military operation in Ukraine.
During Adams' time in office as the head of KleptoCapture, the Justice Department filed a civil forfeiture complaint to seize six real estate properties in New York and Florida worth about $75 million and allegedly owned by Russian tycoon Viktor Vekselberg.
In January, Adams announced that after almost a year since the beginning of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, the US Justice Department's KleptoCapture Task Force would start the first transfers of forfeited assets of Russian businessmen to the State Department in the coming weeks and months for the purpose of providing aid to Ukraine.
Moscow has on many occasions protested any attempts to confiscate frozen Russian assets by asserting that this falls under the definition of expropriation of property in violation of the European Constitution and international law, pledging to take measures in response if the West goes through with the move.
