The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation on July 1 targeting the property acquired in France by Russian oligarchs close to President Vladimir Putin, we learned on Monday from a source familiar with the matter, confirming information from the Parisian.
This investigation was entrusted to the Central Office for the Repression of Serious Financial Crime (OCRGDF). It comes after the anti-corruption NGO Transparency International (TIF) filed a complaint at the end of May in Paris for, in particular, money laundering acts targeting possible ill-gotten gains in France by businessmen and senior officials close to Vladimir Putin.
The complaint against X of the NGO aims, in addition to money laundering, the non-justification of resources, TIF thus explaining to denounce the system of capture of the Russian state and national wealth by relatives of Mr. Putin.
According to the NGO, which does not give the names of the people targeted to avoid reprisals, the system developed extends its ramifications as far as France, in the real estate sector in particular, due to a lack of vigilance on the part of intermediaries.
The ambition of the sanctions measures against Russia and the first freezing announcements come up against the difficulties of identifying the assets of the persons sanctioned. In France, as elsewhere, the pursuit of the assets of the oligarchs and those close to the Russian regime is stalling, explained in a TIF press release, with emphasis on intermediaries, nominees, shell companies or trusts in tax havens or judicial.
Thanks to various sources, we have been able to draw up an inventory of the real estate in France of several oligarchs and those close to the Russian regime, identify the chains of ownership set up for this purpose, and bring together a body of evidence on the illicit origin of the resources having allowed the acquisition of this heritage, said Patrick Lefas, president of TIF.
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The judicial chapter of BMA (ill-gotten gains, Editor’s note) Russian oligarchs will open (…). The freezing measures (of assets, editor’s note) taken following the war in Ukraine will in certain cases be a factor in accelerating the investigation and will allow vast measures of seizure and in the event of a criminal conviction, confiscations, had made argue Me William Bourdon, lawyer for TIF.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the international community has compiled a list of names of Russian oligarchs whose assets have been frozen.
In France, several properties (villas, estates, apartments) have been listed, on the Côte d’Azur, in the Rhône-Alpes region, Paris but also in the South-West.