Since 2022, the name Alisher Usmanov has become something of a cipher for the way criminal and other authorities handle wealthy individuals from Russia.

The mosaic around the Russian-Uzbek multibillionaire and entrepreneur now gains another piece. As finews.com has learned, the Zurich public prosecutor's office is refusing the Munich prosecutors certain investigative measures under mutual legal assistance, considering them a «fishing expedition».

Before turning to the specifics, a brief look at the wider picture is worthwhile.

The European Union placed Usmanov on its sanctions list on February 28, 2022, a step he has been contesting in court ever since. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in the US followed on March 3, and Switzerland adopted the EU sanctions on March 4.

No Convictions in Germany

Germany's sanctions enforcers also set their sights on the yacht Dilbar, which the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (Bafa) had detained at a shipyard as an alleged Usmanov asset.

In June 2026, the Frankfurt Administrative Court ruled that the yacht belongs to a «Sister Trust» and that Bafa had failed to show that Usmanov or his sister held any claim to the trust's assets or to any benefit from them (as reported by finews, article in German). OFAC still has the trust under sanctions to this day.

In Germany, Usmanov also faced legal pursuit over alleged violations of the Foreign Trade and Payments Act. He is said to have failed to declare assets located in Germany despite being required to report them.

The Munich II public prosecutor's office definitively discontinued those investigations in December 2025 in return for a payment of ten million euros (finews reported, article in German).

A Tax Case Still Pending

Those proceedings had been set in motion in part by suspicious activity reports filed by UBS in Frankfurt. Usmanov is suing the bank over the matter.

In Germany, the cases to date have ended without a conviction, even if partly in exchange for payments. The only matter still pending is criminal tax proceedings brought by the Munich II prosecutors.

The New Swiss Connection

Which brings us back to Switzerland. Information and documents reaching finews from judicial circles in Bern indicate that Germany's request sought to prompt the Swiss authorities into a broad search of Swiss banks for accounts held by Usmanov and by legal entities possibly connected to him.

Chronologically, it starts in March 2024, when the Munich prosecutors sent a first request for mutual legal assistance to Bern. As is customary, it went through an initial formal review by the Federal Office of Justice, which found it could not be approved.

Our sources assume that Munich had applied for assistance in criminal tax matters, which Switzerland routinely refuses – the familiar Swiss distinction between tax evasion and tax fraud.

Two Runs at Legal Assistance

In a second attempt, launched by letter dated July 18, 2024, Germany recast the request toward «Abgabebetrug» – fiscal fraud, the qualified tax offense for which Switzerland does grant assistance.

Yet this version, too, was apparently not strong or specific enough. The document sat unprocessed in Bern for a long time.

Asked by the Federal Office of Justice for an opinion, the Federal Tax Administration concluded on September 3, 2024, that the alleged offense was in principle eligible for assistance, but that Germany would have to supply more precise information.

According to the Berlin daily «Berliner Zeitung» (article, German only, behind paywall), a «workshop» was allegedly held at which the Federal Tax Administration showed its German counterparts how to prepare the information for Bern so that assistance could get moving.

The File Finally Lands in Zurich

That supplement finally arrived at the end of October 2025. As is standard, the Federal Office of Justice handed the substantive handling to a canton – in this case Zurich, where such requests from abroad usually go to Public Prosecutor's Office III for Economic Offenses.

What happened next is instructive, highly unusual in the assessment of experienced white-collar lawyers, and from the vantage point of the Swiss financial center also welcome. The prosecutors took the German demands for investigative measures apart point by point, and concluded that substantial parts of the request amounted to a «fishing expedition».

Fishing Expedition Versus Chance Find

The Germans had asked Switzerland to search out the business relationships of Usmanov and of certain trusts with Swiss banks – or, more elegantly, to order the banks to produce documents. Zurich entertained that only where Munich had credibly identified the account relationships.

Speculation has it that this applied to UBS, since Usmanov's relationship with the bank is publicly known from the German proceedings.

On a range of further search measures, however, Germany hit granite. In a letter to the Munich II prosecutors in February 2026, the Zurich prosecutors wrote that a distinction had to be drawn between an (inadmissible) «fishing expedition» and an (admissible) «chance find»: «Whereas with a chance find the discovery of the evidence is not intended, with inadmissible fishing for evidence the chance find is precisely the objective of the measure.»

Assistance Only for Identified Accounts

For bank production orders in particular, the ruling sets a threshold worth remembering for any private bank or asset manager: such a request is admissible «where there is a suspicion of an offense and it can be assumed with a certain probability that the target person holds an account at the bank and that bank information could yield further indications of the offense or of criminally obtained assets».

In plain terms: a foreign authority that wants to comb through an account in Switzerland has to know beforehand that it exists. For a series of demands in the German request, that was evidently not the case.

Munich Wanted a Triple Catch

The ruling becomes specific in three places. First, Munich sought investigative measures at banks «which bear no relation to the statement of facts and to the accusation raised against the accused in the present context».

The verdict: «The bank investigations requested above must be qualified as fishing expeditions within the meaning of Swiss case law and cannot be ordered here.»

Second, Munich asked for bank records on companies «said to have been linked to the accused through the known trusts, for the purpose of tracing the financial flows initiated by the accused». Three constructs are named: «The Pauillac Trust», «The Sister Trust» and «The Sauternes Trust», each with its «associated corporate structure».

A Lack of Proportionality

Here, too, the anchor was missing. The German statement of facts contained «no information whatsoever indicating that findings already exist in Germany that these companies hold, or may have held, account relationships with specific financial institutions in Switzerland».

Accordingly, the investigations into the three trusts were «not proportionate and are to be qualified as fishing expeditions, which is why the execution of these measures is refused here».

Third, and «on the same grounds, that is, for lack of proportionality», the same fate met the identification of any shareholdings, the gathering of bank information on further addressees and, with remarkable brevity, «the investigations into companies ‹owned› by third parties». The quotation marks around the word owned are the prosecutors' own. «Under Swiss law these inquiries likewise constitute fishing expeditions, which is why they are to be refused.»

What the Zurich Prosecutors Say

The conclusion is terse: «For the reasons stated above, the request for mutual legal assistance from the Munich II public prosecutor's office of July 18, 2024, and its supplement of October 20, 2025, unfortunately cannot be granted in the points listed individually above.»

Confronted with the contents of its own letter, the media office of the Zurich prosecutors says assistance was «largely granted» overall, «after both dual criminality and proportionality could be affirmed. Proportionality was denied only in relation to individual account connections.»

Switzerland «expressly does not examine» the underlying suspicion itself, the office adds; that has been done abroad and binds the Swiss authority. That the Federal Tax Administration apparently helped the German prosecutors phrase their request at least partly correctly does not appear to have given Office III pause.

Where the Case Goes From Here

So what happens now? Neither the Zurich prosecutors nor the Federal Office of Justice would comment on the current state of the proceedings. The federal office points to Zurich, and Zurich points to Munich. The Munich prosecutors could not be reached for comment on Friday afternoon.

Our sources expect Zurich to grant assistance shortly, in a final ruling, for those bank records it did not classify as a fishing expedition.

That will not be the last word in the Swiss Usmanov chapter, however. All parties affected can appeal a final ruling to the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona.

The presumption of innocence applies, needless to say, in the criminal tax proceedings brought by the Munich II public prosecutor's office against Alisher Usmanov.