By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The top prosecutor on a U.S. government task force targeting Russian oligarchs' assets as a means to pressure Moscow into ending its war in Ukraine said on Thursday he is leaving the Department of Justice.
Andrew Adams, who has led the "KleptoCapture" task force since its inception in March 2022, will be replaced by his deputies Michael Khoo and David Lim, a DOJ spokesperson said.
"It was a privilege to cap this time in service of the Department's response to the war in Ukraine," Adams, a 10-year Justice Department veteran, wrote in a LinkedIn post.
In launching the task force, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said it would enforce sanctions and export controls designed to freeze Russia out of global markets, and confiscate assets obtained through unlawful conduct.
During Adams' tenure, the unit unveiled indictments against aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska and TV tycoon Konstantin Malofeyev for alleged sanctions busting, and seized yachts belonging to sanctioned oligarchs Suleiman Kerimov and Viktor Vekselberg.
It also won a court order letting prosecutors confiscate $5.4 million from Malofeyev's U.S. bank account, the first of what authorities hope will be a slew of transfers of oligarchs' funds to Ukraine for reconstruction efforts.
More recently, the task force has focused on people accused of helping oligarchs evade sanctions, securing a guilty plea from a U.S. lawyer who admitted to paying taxes, insurance and other fees for Vekselberg's New York properties.
A setback occurred in March when Artem Uss, the son of a former Russian regional governor charged with violating U.S. sanctions by shipping Venezuelan oil, escaped house arrest in Italy, thereby avoiding extradition.
Khoo, from the Justice Department's money laundering and asset recovery section, was part of the team that in May 2022 secured a guilty plea from global commodities trader Glencore (OTC:GLNCY) for foreign bribery, and helped forfeit $53 million in assets linked to corruption in Nigeria's oil sector.
Lim, from the department's national security division, has worked on the prosecution of Chinese telecommunications company Huawei Technologies for alleged trade secret theft and violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran, and helped secure $3.9 billion in penalty payments by Airbus over global bribery allegations.