Suleiman Kerimov, a Russian billionaire and senator, has been placed under investigation for laundering money gained through tax fraud in Nice and prohibited from leaving the French region after being detained by authorities for two days, reports Bloomberg.
Kerimov, whose family controls Russia’s biggest gold producer, Polyus PJSC, was required to surrender his passport and post 5 million euros ($5.9 million) in bail, Nice prosecutor Jean-Michel Prêtre said by phone Thursday.
Polyus shares dropped to the lowest in a week in Moscow on Wednesday.
The Kremlin vowed to defend Kerimov, and a top parliamentarian warned the move may be the start of a “witchhunt” in the West against Russia’s elite. The case is a blow to one of Russia’s wealthiest men, a billionaire who’d spent years cultivating his reputation and financial ties in the West. In Russia, he’s also a prominent politician with close ties to top officials in the government and state companies.
Paul Butler of Akin Gump, a US-based lawyer for Kerimov, said that the billionaire had been “released on his own recognizance.”
“We feel confident that given the continuous legal work we have done, he’s fully in compliance with relevant laws and he’ll be able to demonstrate that in any proceeding that he may face,” said Butler.
Kerimov could face up to ten years in jail and a fine that could be in the tens of millions of euros, Prêtre said, adding that it could take months before investigators wrap up the case and take a decision on whether it should go to trial.
As part of their investigation, French authorities have already confiscated four villas located in the sought-after Cap d’Antibes on the French Riviera, just half an hour away by car from Cannes. The mansions, one of which is known as “Villa Hier,” are each worth well over 100 million euros, according to Prêtre. Agence France-Presse reported that Kerimov is suspected of using figureheads to acquire properties and under-declaring their prices.
“There was a clear intention of this individual to privatize the Cap d’Antibes,” Prêtre said. The prosecutor said the investigation, which has been going on for about three or four years ago, didn’t initially target Kerimov and focused on simple drug trafficking suspicions.
While the Russian foreign ministry insists that Kerimov has diplomatic immunity, according to a report from the state-controlled RIA Novosti news service, France’s foreign ministry told reporters Wednesday that it’s up to the investigative judge in charge of the case to decide whether the matters under examination are relevant to Kerimov’s duties and protected by immunity.
Read more of this report from Bloomberg.
Editor's note: Bloomberg report (see link) that Suleiman Kerimov has been "charged", in an interpretation sometimes used in Anglophone media of the French legal status of being "mise en examen", which is literally "placed under investigation". Mediapart English, and also some other Anglophone media, prefer the precise term of "placed under investigation", which can lead to charges being brought at the end of a judicial investigation on the decision of the examining magistrates in charge of the case.