Two years after the start of the war in Ukraine, the judicial battle in France against people close to the Russian government continues to make headway. Judicial authorities have ordered the seizure of two more properties, as confirmed to Le Monde by the Paris prosecutor's office. Although they are not the most luxurious properties seized to date, the symbolism is nonetheless significant because they are tied to the direct entourage of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
One of the properties is the "Villa Souzanna" in Anglet, in the Basque Country, which was graffitied two days after the start of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, with anti-Putin slogans including "Fuck Putin," "Glory to Ukraine!" (in Ukrainian), and "Putin's mafia." Described in the press as the property of Lyudmila Otcheretnaya (formerly Putina), who was the Russian president's wife from 1983 to 2013, the Art Deco-style villa 300 meters from the Dunes beach is officially owned by a real estate company controlled by Artur Ocheretny.
Ocheretny, who is married to Otcheretnaya, 20 years his senior, since 2015, acquired the Basque property in 2013 for €5.4 million – with an additional €3.5 million required to cover renovation work. "There is nothing in Ocheretny’s background that explains how he could have come to own such a prime piece of real estate," wrote Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) in an investigation published in 2017.
A case opened following a complaint from the NGO Transparency International
Handed over to judicial authorities on December 6, 2023, the property is at the heart of a preliminary investigation that began in September 2022 "concerning the offense of aggravated money laundering," according to the Paris prosecutor's office, which also confirmed that it is a "case opened following a complaint from the NGO Transparency International."
The procedure is being monitored by JUNALCO, France's national anti-organized crime jurisdiction, and has been entrusted to police officers from the OCRGDF, an agency tasked with combating fraud, money laundering and terrorism funding. According to judicial sources, numerous anomalies have been discovered since the beginning of the investigation, notably during searches of the villa and the headquarters of the real estate company. Le Monde has learned the main focus of the investigation is the source of the €9 million used to finance the purchase of the villa and the renovation work. It has "not been possible to determine the origin" of these funds, according to a judicial source, who pointed out that such an amount is "out of proportion" to Ocheretny's known resources. All that is known is that the money arrived from Russian bank accounts.
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