Among the assets under suspicion is real estate located on the coast of the French Basque Country
Five months after the war in Ukraine started, French justice is investigating real estate purchased by Russian oligarchs near President Vladimir Putin in France.
The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF, for its acronym in French) opened an investigation on July 1 after the French branch of the NGO Transparency International filed a complaint in late May.
The PNF has opened the investigation for a possible crime of “money laundering in an organized gang of corruption crimes, misappropriation of public funds and aggravated tax fraud”, the prosecution has specified. The investigation has been entrusted to the Central Office for the Repression of Major Financial Crimes (OCRGDF, for its acronym in French).
According to the newspaper ‘Le Parisien’, the circumstances under which Russian oligarchs near the Kremlin acquired real estate on the Côte d’Azur, the French Basque coast, Paris and in ski resorts in the Alps between 2003 and 2018 are being investigated.
At the end of May, Transparency International France filed a complaint with the French national financial prosecutor’s office against unknown persons for money laundering, non-justification of funds, cover-up and complicity, in order to denounce “the system of imprisonment of the Russian state”. and national wealth by businessmen and high officials close to Vladimir Putin». According to this NGO, this system has consequences in France, especially in the real estate sector.
The European Union (EU) has imposed several sanctions on Russia since the recognition by Moscow on February 21 of the areas not controlled by the government of the Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk and the unprovoked and unwarranted invasion from Ukraine. These sanctions include individual sanctions, economic sanctions and diplomatic measures.
The individual sanctions consist of a travel ban and the freezing of EU assets and bank accounts of Russians on the list. Thanks to sanctions adopted by the European Union against Russia for the war in Ukraine, it has so far been able to freeze some €13.8 billion of oligarchs and entities.
Source: La Verdad
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