Miami Real Estate Agent Fined by OFAC, Pleads Guilty to Russia Sanctions Evasion

OFAC called the case “egregious” and said Family International Realty didn’t voluntarily disclose the violations. The agency also noted that the firm’s owner, Roman Sinyavsky, pleaded guilty Jan. 16 for his role in the scheme, which included violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Sinyavsky also agreed to forfeit $182,442.45 in proceeds from the scheme.

DOJ earlier this month seized two of the condominiums that Sinyavsky’s firm had helped manage (see 2501090038).

OFAC said the violations occurred after the agency sanctioned Russian businessmen Viktor Perevalov and Valeri Abramov in 2018, saying their construction company helped build a highway in the Russia-occupied Crimea region.

Sinyavsky, who OFAC refers to as “U.S. Person-1,” had provided longstanding property management services for both Abramov’s and Perevalov’s South Florida condominiums, OFAC said, and also exercised power of attorney over Perevalov’s bank account while acting as the “care of” party for at least three bank accounts jointly owned by Abramov and Abramov’s spouse.

Shortly before the two Russian businessmen were sanctioned, OFAC said, Sinyavsky had been renting out two condominium units owned by Perevalov and his spouse as “luxury hotel rooms,” and he was also trying to broker the sale of another unit owned by Abramov and his spouse. After they were added to OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals List, the agency said Sinyavsky “initiated a scheme” to transfer their ownership of the condos to their non-sanctioned family members.

The agency said Sinyavsky “understood or had reason to know” that the sanctions blocked transactions involving the condos, and said his scheme was an effort to remove the names of Abramov and Perevalov from the property titles to hide their ownership, which would allow the properties to continue to be rented or sold. OFAC also said Sinyavsky “stood to earn a commission” from this scheme.

OFAC said it obtained text messages between Sinyavsky and Abramov that showed Sinyavsky was aware of the sanctions implications. Hours after Abramov was sanctioned, Sinyavsky texted him that “it will soon be forbidden to deal with you...I talked with people who know [about this issue] here.” OFAC said Sinyavsky then continued contacting potential condo buyers on behalf of Abramov.

After failing to find a buyer, Sinyavsky and Abramov came up with a plan to change the ownership status of the condo from a “joint marital property” to one that solely belonged to Abramov’s spouse. Sinyavsky worked with a law firm to deed the property, valued at more than $1 million, to Abramov’s spouse in June 2018, about five months after he was sanctioned.

OFAC added that Sinyavsky knew he was helping Abramov evade sanctions because he sent a text to an “interlocutor” for Abramov that said: “Abramov understands that without this [plan], all his money and apartment will be taken away from him!”

Sinyavsky eventually sold the property in March 2019 for a $1.2 million cash offer, OFAC said, earning a commission on the transaction and reimbursement for expenses he had paid to maintain the property.

OFAC said Sinyavsky helped Perevalov carry out a similar scheme, including by removing Perevalov’s name from his condo property titles “in order to continue to generate revenue from them and potentially facilitate their future sale.” Sinyavsky worked with the same law firm to transfer ownership of the condominium to a Delaware shell company he created, which listed one of Perevalov’s non-sanctioned minor children as the owner and Sinyavsky as the manager, OFAC said. The agency said Perevalov and his spouse also transferred ownership of their other properties -- “without consideration” -- to the shell company in June 2018.

After the transfer, Sinyavsky and his real estate firm continued to rent out the properties as luxury hotel rooms until March 2023, OFAC said. During that time, they were “generating or attempting to generate” about $840,254 in rent payment revenue for the shell company. Family International Realty earned a commission on those payments.

OFAC said it could have imposed a maximum $30 million penalty against Family International Realty and Sinyavsky but settled on a $1,076,923 fine after taking into account their “financial condition” and the fact that Sinyavsky pleaded guilty to a criminal charge “relating to the same underlying conduct.” OFAC also noted he faces a maximum prison sentence of five years.

The agency also said Sinyavsky and his firm cooperated with OFAC’s investigation, and it will credit $182,442 of its fine against the forfeiture Sinyavsky agreed to pay DOJ.

OFAC also pointed to several aggravating factors, including the fact that Sinyavsky and his firm “executed a willful, sophisticated sanctions evasion scheme on behalf of two sanctioned oligarchs with knowledge” that it likely violated U.S. law. The agency also said they “at all times had actual knowledge of the apparently violative conduct,” enlisted others to help, generated millions of dollars in proceeds for the sanctioned Russian oligarchs and earned commissions for themselves. They also “substantially undermined” U.S. sanctions objectives by violating OFAC’s Ukraine-/Russia-related sanctions.

The case highlights the roles that realtors, investment advisers, lawyers, trust and corporate services providers, and other “gatekeepers” can play in sanctions evasion schemes, OFAC said. They should “remain vigilant of the risk that unscrupulous actors, including sanctioned parties or their proxies, may seek to use professional services to conceal a property interest or otherwise evade OFAC sanctions.”

The agency also said banks that deal with realtors, investment advisers and others in the same line of work should carry out “sufficient due diligence” to make sure they aren’t acting as “proxies” for sanctioned parties. “Financial institutions and other service providers should also apply heightened scrutiny when a gatekeeper may represent or purport to represent a close family member, agent, or associate of a sanctioned person,” OFAC said.

It also stressed that property interests of sanctioned people are “generally not extinguished” just because of an ownership change through “sham transfers of title or surreptitious efforts to obscure their connection.” People who try to evade sanctions through “post-designation arrangements, including by substituting family members or third parties as the owners of property in which blocked persons retain an interest, may find their efforts futile.”

Family International Realty and Sinyavsky didn’t respond to requests for comment.