WASHINGTON, February 7. /TASS/. The new orders of US Attorney General Pam Bondi do not contain instructions to disband the Western anti-Russian working group known by the acronym REPO, a US Justice Department official told TASS.
Commenting on Bondi's initial decisions to shift the main focus of US law enforcement agencies to the fight against drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations, the official said: "I have not seen that task force mentioned in the memos [signed by Bondi]."
The Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs (REPO) Task Force is a multilateral body created under and at the initiative of the previous US administration led by Joe Biden. The group sought and seized Russian assets based on unilateral Western sanctions. Under President Biden, the West held regular meetings of the body, including at the level of justice ministers.
At the same time, according to her February 5 memorandum released by the US Department of Justice, Bondi ordered the disbanding of KleptoCapture, an interagency group that was engaged in hunting Russian business assets abroad and stopping the circumvention of sanctions against Russia. In addition, Bondi disbanded the task force to combat foreign influence on US elections and the interagency group on the corporate sector. All of these task forces were created under Biden. Bondi was sworn in as Justice Secretary on February 5.
In early September 2023, the US Treasury Department reported after the REPO meeting that the group had blocked about $280 billion worth of Russian sovereign assets. Most of them are in the jurisdiction of the European Union, the agency said.