Gazprom, the Russian gas giant run by close friends of Vladimir Putin which escaped European sanctions, has been caught up in French justice. The specialized interregional economic and financial jurisdiction (JIRS) of the Paris public prosecutor’s office is interested in a villa on the Côte d’Azur which, with its three swimming pools, its tennis court and its heliport, is one of the most luxurious in the French Riviera. Located in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin (Alpes-Maritimes), near Monaco, it was once a base for the Zairian dictator Sese Seko Mobutu and his family.
According to information from Worlda legal procedure relating to suspicions of “aggravated whitening” was opened and entrusted to the judicial financial investigation service (SEJF) of Bercy. “There is evidence to suggest that the successive acquisition plans for the villa were made in the name of different companies, whose indirect owners would amount to making the company Gazprom the effective beneficiary”, details the flooring to the World. It was suspicions about the real identity of the owner of the property that triggered the judicial investigation.
The gas giant, which accounted for 8% of Russia’s GDP before the war in Ukraine, is one of the largest contributors to the Russian state budget. Part of its income would also make it possible to finance a private militia engaged on the Ukrainian front, according to documents released by kyiv in February. The public company is managed by people close to Vladimir Putin, whether its CEO, Alexeï Miller, or Viktor Zubkov, the chairman of the supervisory board, who both worked with him when the latter worked at the town hall of Saint -Petersburg.
The official owner of the villa in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin has been, since fall 2016, a rich Russian-Armenian businessman, Samvel Karapetyan. But many elements brought together by The world, from official registers and data leaked from the “Cyprus Confidential” investigation show that Gazprom still maintains multiple links with this villa today despite its official withdrawal in 2016. According to our information, the villa has, for example , was pledged for the benefit of Gazprombank and an offshore company linked to a Gazprom manager. If the judicial investigation establishes that the numerous arrangements surrounding the property made it possible to conceal the identity of the true owner of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, the courts could seize the property and permanently confiscate it in the event of conviction.
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