I think there may be a lot of hand washing because of dealing with sanctioned individuals before they were sanctioned. It leaves a bad taste to deal with someone who has ties to Kremlin but you don’t dare to ask due to greed element. Next thing you know, the person you took money from turns out to be sanctioned for being the custodian of a war criminal. What do you do next?

I’m speculating here now but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was so hard to trace Putin’s wealth to be sanctioned , because some of it could already be deeply embedded in the US financial sector. No need to look far. Take a look at Manhattan real estate.

The degree of separation via shell companies often provides some plausible deniability and moral licensing but in light of the Whitehouse creating a new task force to sniff those connections out , we may see some interesting stories come out.

Those are unpleasant and very difficult questions to ask that will have to be asked. I hope I’m wrong here, but my cynical side thinks otherwise.

If you think these theories are far fetched, and that people are beyond corruption look no further than former chancellor of Germany being a board member of Gazprom, or former ministers of Finland and Italy who also resigned from board of directors. Lots of British high society cutting ties with Rosneft and Gazprom too.

Money can be a powerful corrupting force.