FBI raids US home of Russian oligarch and President Putin associate Oleg Deripaska (Photos)

FBI agents are currently in the homes in New York and Washington linked to Russian oil tycoon Oleg Deripaska over sanctions imposed on him in 2018. 

The agents are conducting “court-authorized law enforcement activity” at Deripaska’s home in Washington, D.C., an FBI spokeswoman told CNBC.

The searches in Washington are the result of a federal investigation stemming from New York City, two officials briefed on the matter told NBC News, which first reported the raid.

Multiple agents were seen restricting access to the property, NBC reported.

A source told DailyMail.com that Deripaska hasn’t been back to the US since at least 2017 and had no intention of returning after the Treasury Department hit him with sanctions, but those claims have not been verified. 

In 2018, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Deripaska and about two dozen other oligarchs and Kremlin officials tied to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Deripaska sued over the sanctions, but a U.S. judge in June dismissed his lawsuit.

Deripaska became widely known in the U.S. for his ties to Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman who was convicted on fraud charges stemming from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Deripaska and other members of Putin’s inner circle as well as 12 Russian businesses connected to them were blacklisted by the Treasury Department in 2018 over alleged international crimes 

The next year, Donald Trump lifted sanctions on three companies connected to him despite objections from Congressional Democrats.

At the time Trump’s Treasury Department claimed those companies ‘have reduced Oleg Deripaska’s direct and indirect shareholding stake in those companies and severed his control.’

Deripaska is also a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin who’s been accused of helping the Kremlin conduct foreign influence operations.