Russian Police can freeze bank accounts without court orders

President Vladimir Putin has signed a new law granting police broad powers to freeze individuals’ bank accounts without a court order. 

The expanded powers could increase the risk of arbitrary or unjustified asset seizures.

The law also imposes new obligations on financial institutions.

Banks and money transfer services must provide law enforcement with full information about a citizen’s accounts and transactions within three days of a request, or within 24 hours if the request is submitted electronically.

According to The Vedomosti business daily the legislation provides no specific list of crimes that qualify for account freezes and fails to outline key procedural safeguards.

There is no indication, for example, of whether the amount frozen must correspond to the alleged damages, he said. There´s even under the current legal system, property belonging to third parties is sometimes confiscated in economic crime cases without sufficient evidence of illegal origin.

While the law is officially aimed at enhancing tools to combat cyber-enabled financial crimes, critics fear it could be used more broadly to target political opponents, journalists or activists, particularly in an environment where financial pressure is increasingly being used as a tool of state control.