The villa, named “Suzanna”, which was purchased for 5.4 million euros in December 2013, was seized on December 6, 2023, the indictment said. According to Challenges magazine, this Art Deco villa belongs to Russian businessman Artur Ocheretny, Lyudmila Putin’s new companionex-wife of Vladimir Putin.
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Complaint filed by the association
In particular, the investigations, which began in September 2022, must determine whether the funds that made this acquisition possible were fraudulent origin. “No person is currently being prosecuted in this matter,” the prosecution emphasized. This procedure was initiated based on a complaint from the anti-corruption association Transparency International, he recalled.
The complaint, filed after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, targeted four Russian oligarchs or relatives of Russian oligarchs, a source familiar with the matter said. According to Challenges, renovation work was carried out on Villa Souzanna at a cost of 3.5 million euros.
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The businessman acquired other properties in Europe, especially in Spain and Switzerland, for several million euros. “His officially known professional activities do not generate sufficient income to justify such a lifestyle with acquisitions worth several tens of millions of euros,” Sara Brimbeuf, head of advocacy at Transparency International, told AFP.
“It is property occupied by activists which called for its seizure and confiscation for the benefit of the Ukrainian people” and “that belongs to Vladimir Putin’s ex-wifeso we get into a rather narrow circle,” she explained to the Russian president.
“This shows that seizure and confiscation remain the most appropriate way to achieve definitive confiscation or even restitution for the benefit of the Ukrainian people,” added Sara Brimbeuf, recalling that the freeze was a political decision that can be reversed.