"Government seizes the $42.5M New York mansion owned by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska while he is investigated for money-laundering, bribery, racketeering and MURDER"

Back in June there was a story "U.S. open to lifting sanctions off aluminum giant Rusal - Mnuchin" that struck a discordant note versus what we thought were the positions of the playas. Our comment at the time was:

This is very odd, I thought the current U.S. administration loathed Deripaska. I know the oligarch gave up control but he still has "control", if you know what I mean.

Some pup analysts said stuff like "Oh, he's Manafort's buddy" which was 180 degrees from the reality but whatever.
From the Daily Mail who went with the classic Daily Mail use of caps in the headline.

• Oleg Deripaska's $42.5million mansion on New York's Upper East Side is part of assets the FBI has frozen as the Russian billionaire is sanctioned
• Roman Abramovich's ex-wife Dasha Zhukova who is a good friend of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner lives there with children Aaron Alexander and Leah Lou
• Deripaska's Washington DC property has also been claimed and the FBI is also looking at his assets in Europe
• The billionaire was one of six wealthy Russians targeted in 2016 for eliciting information on former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort as he was suspected of working for Russia and of linking Trump to powerful forces in the Kremlin to help swing presidential votes

Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska's $42.5million mansion on New York's Upper East Side has been seized by the US government as part of sanctions placed on the 50-year-old who cooperated with the Paul Manafort investigation, New York Post reports.

The aluminium billionaire – who has the likes of Rusal, Basic Element, En+, Russian Machines, Evrosibenergo, GAZ Group, B-Finance and the Kuban agricultural holding under his name – is under scrutiny for links to money-laundering, bribery, racketeering and murder, US Treasury sources told the publication.

It means any American companies engaging in business with him must cease operations by November 12, extended from the original October 23 deadline reports Crime Russia.

Despite the freeze on his Big Apple home, Deripaska - worth 2.8billion - had reportedly arranged for Roman Abramovich's ex-wife and their children to live there.

Dasha Zhukova, a socialite and friend of Ivanka trump's,  is the daughter of another Russian oligarch – Alexander Zhukov – and resides at the property with son, Aaron Alexander, and a daughter, Leah Lou....MORE 

 If interested see also February's "How the UK government is seeking to retake control of Londongrad":

Anyone on the outside who purports to know what is going on with the spy guys and spy gals, whether in the U.S., Britain, Russia or wherev, is at minimum a liar, knave, fool or varlet, and probably some combination thereof.

The writer of this piece, Con Coughlin is the defense and foreign affairs editor at the Telegraph who was part of a team that did a piece on  Oleg Deripaska last week which caused a bit of hubbub in some quarters, link after the jump.

This OpEd is from The National (UAE) Feb. 8:

MI6 regards Russia as posing a grave threat to British security, writes Con Coughlin....

There will be more in the coming weeks with a enough twists and turns to make it interesting.