Defendant and Wife Allegedly Conspired to Provide Services to and Receive and Launder Over $1 Million from Sanctioned Russian Broadcaster; Wife Allegedly Provided Art and Antiques to Sanctioned Oligarch 

September 9, 2024 – WASHINGTON – Dimitri Simes, 76, and Anastasia Simes, 55, both of Huntly, Virginia, and Russia, are charged by indictments with two separate schemes to violate U.S. sanctions. The indictments were announced by U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves, Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen, and FBI Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg of the FBI Washington Field Office.

The first indictment alleges that Dimitri and Anastasia Simes participated in a scheme to violate U.S. sanctions for the benefit of sanctioned Russian broadcaster Channel One Russia and to launder funds obtained from that scheme. Channel One Russia, a state-owned Russian television station, was sanctioned by OFAC on May 8, 2022, for being owned or controlled by, or for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, the Government of the Russian Federation. 

From at least in or around June 2022 through the present, Dimitri Simes, Anastasia Simes, and others allegedly participated in a scheme to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), by providing services to Channel One Russia, including by serving as a presenter and producer of programming, and by receiving over $1 million, a personal car and driver, a stipend for an apartment in Moscow, Russia, and a team of ten employees from Channel One Russia following its designation by OFAC. The indictment alleges that Dimitri Simes and Anastasia Simes also engaged in a scheme to commit money laundering, knowing the transactions were intended to conceal the proceeds of IEEPA violations.

“These defendants allegedly violated sanctions that were put in place in response to Russia’s illegal aggression in Ukraine,” said US Attorney Graves. “Such violations harm our national security interests—a fact that Dimitri Simes, with the deep experience he gained in national affairs after fleeing the Soviet Union and becoming a U.S. citizen, should have uniquely appreciated.”

Dimitri and Anastasia Simes maintain a home in Huntly, Virginia. They remain at large and are believed to be in Russia. They are each charged with one count of conspiracy to violate IEEPA, one count of violating IEEPA, and one count of conspiracy to commit international money laundering, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

A second indictment alleges that Anastasia Simes further participated in a scheme to violate U.S. sanctions for the benefit of, and to receive funds from, sanctioned oligarch Aleksandr Yevgenyevich Udodov. Udodov was sanctioned by OFAC on February 23, 2023, for operating or having operated in the management consulting sector of the Russian Federation economy. Between at least February 2023 and the present, Anastasia Simes and others allegedly participated in a scheme to violate IEEPA by purchasing art and antiques for the benefit of Udovov from galleries and auction houses in the United States and Europe, and having the items shipped to her residence in Huntly, Virginia, where they were stored for onward shipment to Russia. In return, Anastasia Simes was reimbursed and received a service fee. The indictment alleges that Anastasia Simes also engaged in a scheme to commit money laundering, knowing the transactions were intended to conceal the proceeds of IEEPA violations.

(Below are photographs of some of the art and antiques intended for Udodov and stored in Anastasia and Dimtiri Simes’s residence.)

In connection with this scheme, Anastasia Simes is charged with one count of conspiracy to violate IEEPA, one count of violating IEEPA, and one count of conspiracy to commit international money laundering, each of which each carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The FBI’s Washington Field Office is investigating both cases.  The cases are being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Hughes of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and Trial Attorneys Menno Goedman and Sean O’Dowd of the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Security Division, Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.

The case is part of the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency law enforcement task force dedicated to enforcing the sweeping sanctions, export restrictions, and economic countermeasures that the United States has imposed, along with its allies and partners, in response to Russia’s unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine. The task force leverages all the Department’s tools and authorities against efforts to evade or undermine the economic actions taken by the U.S. government in response to Russian military aggression.