Swiss Freeze of Russian Assets Stands at $6.3 Billion
- Fresh tally is down from $7.6 billion blocked as of April 7
- Russian money in country estimated at as much as $200 billion
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Switzerland has frozen a further 2.2 billion Swiss francs ($2.2 billion) of Russian assets in the past five weeks, as its responds to criticism that it should be doing more to block the fortunes of those close to Vladimir Putin.
The current tally of frozen assets now stands at 6.3 billion francs, Swiss official Erwin Bollinger said at a government briefing Thursday in the Swiss capital Bern. The figure is actually down from the 7.5 billion Swiss francs worth of assets frozen as of April 7 because even though an additional 2.2 billion francs were blocked, 3.4 billion francs were released again after being frozen on a precautionary basis.