Russia’s richest oligarch, Leonid Mikhelson, had a private jet secretly registered in the United States and he did it with the help of Bank of Utah, based in Ogden.
The community bank, with 19 locations, has a side business creating aircraft trusts, largely for people who don’t want their names on any public documents. Such transactions, while legal, have been criticized by some members of Congress and federal auditors as major security risks.
The transaction involving Mikhelson, who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, is the subject of a New York Times article published Monday as part of the “Paradise Papers” leak, where a cache of records from Appleby, an offshore law firm, were leaked to a German newspaper, which then brought in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.