Moscow has $2bn stuck at JPMorgan. U.S. isn't sure what to do with it.

The U.S. will keep reviewing its sanction regimes and act against people who try to evade them, said an official

- Joe Wallace, Costas Paris & Jared Malsin

A few months after invading Ukraine, Russia sent a series of huge payments to Turkey. In short order, it transferred more than $5 billion with the promise of more to come.

To the outside world, the money was to pay for Turkey's first nuclear-power plant. Decades in the making and championed by Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it was being built and financed by Russia's state atomic conglomerate.

Over in New York, the transfers caught the attention of Justice Department investigators tasked with policing Wall Street. The reason? Two of America's pre-eminent banks, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, handled the flow of money.

The investigators found that Russia and Turkey used the nuclear project in 2022 to dance around U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia's central bank, according to people familiar with the matter. Technocrats in Moscow slipped billions of dollars through the U.S. banks into a friendly country, from which the money could bankroll Russian state initiatives.

JPMorgan and Citigroup aren't targets of the investigation, which hasn't been previously reported. However, $2 billion of the Russian funds are trapped at JPMorgan after the U.S. government halted some of the bank transfers.

U.S. prosecutors in 2024 prepared to try to seize the money on the grounds it was the proceeds of sanctions evasion, money laundering and bank fraud. But they were blocked in the final stretch of the Biden administration, the people said, because the White House wanted to avoid angering Turkey, a vital but sometimes contentious ally.

Different parts of the U.S. government, such as the State Department and National Security Council, often weigh in before the Justice Department takes steps that might have national-security or diplomatic implications. A request to ice a case altogether is rare, according to former prosecutors.