The Charity Commission has opened statutory inquiries into three charities linked to Dr Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor, who was sanctioned earlier this month by the UK government.
The Kantor Charitable Foundation, the Kantor Foundation and the World Holocaust Forum Foundation were all founded by Kantor.
Kantor is a Russian businessman who heads the Acorn group, which is a fertiliser producer.
The regulator has frozen the bank accounts of the Kantor Charitable Foundation and Kantor Foundation, and prevented the World Holocaust Forum Foundation from parting with any of the charity’s property.
Tim Hopkins, assistant director, investigations and inquiries at the Charity Commission, said: “We are committed to protecting the integrity of the charitable sector and are clear that an individual sanctioned in the UK cannot act as a trustee. These inquiries are part of our ongoing and wide-ranging work in response to the crisis in Ukraine.”
The Kantor Charitable Foundation and the Kantor Foundation are mainly funded by Kantor. They make grants to other charities, and between then distributed over £2m in 2020.
The World Holocaust Forum Foundation was registered in 2021 and has not yet filed accounts with the charity regulator.
Last month the Commission opened an inquiry into Genesis Philanthropy Group, after three of its founding trustees were made subject to financial sanctions.
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