OFAC hits GVA Capital with $216M penalty for servicing sanctioned Russian oligarch
By 
Aaron Nicodemus2025-06-13T14:39:00
A San Francisco venture capital firm will pay a $216 million fine to the U.S. Treasury for violating U.S. sanctions by managing investments for a Russian oligarch.
Global Venture Alliance (GVA) Capital allegedly managed investments for Suleiman Kerimov, a Russian government official, from 2016 to 2023, despite knowing of his status on the blocked persons list of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). GVA Capital also failed to comply with a subpoena by not producing the full amount of documentation requested by the agency for 28 months, OFAC said Thursday in a press release.
According to OFAC’s enforcement release, Kerimov invested approximately $20 million with GVA Capital in 2016, but was sanctioned by OFAC in April 2018 for being a Russian government official. Representatives of GVA Capital met twice in 2016 with Kerimov in France to discuss the investment, OFAC said in its enforcement release. Kerimov later designated his nephew, Nariman Gadzhiev, as his proxy. GVA Capital continued to provide investment services to Kerimov, through Nadzhiev and via several limited liability corporations for which Kerimov had a beneficial interest, through 2023.
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