- John Ormerod has been charged by the NCA with breaching Russia sanctions and money laundering linked to tanker transactions involving Lukoil, despite being removed from the UK sanctions list weeks earlier.
- Prosecutors allege he unlawfully handled £200,000 subject to asset freeze rules and transferred £100,000 suspected to be criminal proceeds on 20 May 2025.
- The case centres on his role in acquiring a “shadow fleet” of 25 tankers (worth over $700 million) that transported Russian oil generating nearly $10 billion.
John Ormerod, the 75-year-old British accountant whose tanker transactions on behalf of Lukoil became a defining case in Russia sanctions enforcement, was charged yesterday with two criminal offences by the UK National Crime Agency (NCA). This comes just six weeks after the UK government removed him from the UK sanctions list.
The charges, as authorised by the Crown Prosecution Service, allege that, on 20 May 2025, Ormerod dealt with the transfer of £200,000 in contravention of regulation 11 of the Russia (Sanctions) Regulations 2019.
Regulation 11 imposes an asset freeze requiring that funds and economic resources owned, held, or controlled by a designated person must be frozen and not dealt with.
On the same day, Ormerod is alleged to have transferred £100,000, which he knew or suspected to be the proceeds of criminal conduct, a money laundering offence.
Yesterday’s charge follows developments on 2 March 2026, when the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office removed Ormerod from the UK sanctions list under the Russia regime, following what his legal team described as detailed submissions as to the lawfulness of the original designation.
His lawyers at Quillon Law celebrated the outcome as a vindication, noting that Ormerod had become the first UK-based national to be designated by the government over alleged Russian sanctions breaches, and, at the time, one of only a few individuals sanctioned under the Russian Regulations to be de-listed. While the UK has sanctioned hundreds of shadow fleet vessels since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, Ormerod was the first individual charged with their acquisition.
Corporate correspondence reviewed by the Financial Times revealed that Lukoil financed Ormerod to purchase at least 25 old tankers between December 2022 and August 2023, with a total value of more than $700 million.
Each ship was bought by a different special-purpose company incorporated by Ormerod in the Marshall Islands; Lukoil’s Dubai-based subsidiary Eiger Shipping DMCC provided the funds by paying in advance to charter the vessels before they were even purchased.
Since their acquisition, the 25 ships have transported approximately 120 million barrels of Russian oil. At approximately $82 per barrel (as of February 2023), that amounts to some $9.8 billion in oil export revenues for Moscow.
Ormerod is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 15 May 2026.
