The Kremlin denounced Thursday the seizure of the villa of a Russian businessman in the southwest of France, saying that this decision threatens the “foundations” of the French legal system. “Any attack on private property is a priori illegal,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov told the press. “In this way, the French authorities are undermining the foundations of their legal system,” he added.
A villa belonging to a Russian businessman in Anglet, in the southwest of France, was seized in December 2023 as part of an investigation into suspicions of aggravated money laundering, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday .
A villa worth 5.4 million euros
The villa called “Souzanna” was purchased for 5.4 million euros in December 2013, the prosecution said. According to the French magazine Challenges, this Art Deco style house belongs to Russian businessman Artur Ocheretny, the new companion of Lyudmila Putin, the ex-wife of Vladimir Putin.
The investigation must determine in particular whether the funds which made this acquisition possible had a fraudulent origin. No person is currently being prosecuted in this case, underlined the prosecution, recalling that the procedure had been launched following a complaint from the anti-corruption association Transparency International.
Since the start of the large-scale attack against Ukraine at the end of February 2022, many Western countries have sanctioned figures deemed close to Russian power and seized some of their property abroad.