Russian Oligarch Suleiman Kerimov Held SpaceX Shares Despite U.S. Sanctions

Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov secretly held shares in SpaceX through a U.S. trust for five years, despite being under sanctions, reports NewsBox.

According to Bloomberg, Kerimov, a Russian billionaire and senator from Dagestan, owned a portion of SpaceX shares between 2017 to 2022, during which four years he was subject to U.S. sanctions. This information comes from informed sources.

The agency's sources state that Kerimov acquired around 1% of SpaceX's shares via the Heritage Trust, registered in the U.S. state of Delaware. After sanctions were imposed in 2018, Citigroup Inc., which managed the trust, consulted the U.S. Treasury Department but concluded that asset blocking was not necessary.

However, in June 2022, U.S. authorities froze the Heritage Trust after discovering that Kerimov had used a complex network of shell companies to conceal his interests. By this time, according to sources, his SpaceX shareholding had already been sold.

The U.S. Department of Justice initiated an investigation into Citigroup Inc., and the activities of the Heritage Trust were completely frozen. It remains unclear whether SpaceX was aware of who the ultimate owner of a portion of its shares was.