Western governments have quietly contracted multiple teams of “combat bookkeepers” to secure the estimated hundreds of billions of dollars worth of sanctioned assets the Russian president and his oligarch cronies have spent the past 22 years legitimately laundering through international capital markets.

The mission of these private-sector units of financial sleuths, who have offered their services at far below market rates and are in some instances working pro bono, is to uncover, value, dispose of, and then distribute the proceeds of what’s known as the Kremlin Ration.

Operating for now behind closed doors to shield themselves from becoming collateral damage in Putin’s war against Ukraine, these semi-clandestine groups, in consultation with global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the G7 Group of Nations, are being deployed around the world, according to a Wall Street executive who manages one such team.

“It’s only a slight exaggeration to say we’re going after the assets of an Al Capone who has nuclear weapons,” said an independent investigator now scouring his market portfolio.