In the village of La Rochepot, about fifteen kilometers from Beaune, in Côte-d’Or, he was generally called “Monsieur” or “Rudolph”. For everyone, he was the mysterious owner, Lithuanian it was said, of the 1,500 square meter castle, with its glazed tiles and its turrets overlooking the village.
The imposing building, with a 28-hectare park, was for a long time the historic residence of the family of the president of the IIIe République Sadi Carnot and the third most visited monument in Burgundy – after the Hospices de Beaune and the Abbaye de Fontenay – welcoming around 30,000 tourists a year.
At the end of 2015, the heirs of the statesman sold the castle for 3 million euros to this mysterious buyer because of the scale of his project. He promised to build
a truffle farm, a wine trade, a heliport on adjoining land and even a bar perched in the trees. None of this ever came to fruition.
The owner was arrested on October 5, 2018, surrounded by around fifteen police cars. The castellan was actually called Dmitri Malinovsky and was of Ukrainian nationality. The 40-year-old man will be tried from November 7 to 21, in Nancy, for abuse of social property, concealed work, use of false identity documents, illegal possession of firearms and money laundering in an organized gang.
Fake death, real expenses
In this incredible case, it is about the war that has shaken eastern Ukraine since 2014, lies, and financial crimes committed between the Baltic States, Asia and Switzerland. In the dock, Dmitri Malinovsky will be alongside six other defendants, including Olga Kalina, an ex-girlfriend with whom he had two children, Alla Malinovska, his ex-wife, with whom he had four children, Alexandru Arman , the former manager of the castle, or even a Parisian lawyer involved in the purchase of the property.
In the said castle, we were obviously leading the way. During multiple searches, the investigators got their hands on several hundred thousand euros in cash, luxury watches, dizzying bills at Hermès or in the chic hotels on the Route des Grands Crus, engravings, including one signed Salvador Dalí, a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud as well as invoices for several plastic surgery operations carried out in Switzerland. So many expenses linked to a very complex financial arrangement which would have made it possible to launder almost 13 million euros, embezzled in Ukraine in April 2015.
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