French justice announced on Wednesday a financial agreement, accompanied by a fine, with a Swiss company prosecuted for having served as nominee and under-declared the purchase of villas in the South East of France on behalf of the billionaire Russian Sulaiman Kerimov.
The company Swiru Holding AG, which had sheltered the operations of buying a first villa in 2008 from the family of a Swiss entrepreneur, was indicted for complicity in tax fraud on November 14, 2019.
On the same day, the Russian oligarch, initially indicted for complicity in tax evasion aggravated in March 2019, was meanwhile placed under the status of assisted witness for this count, a procedure which corresponds to a “de-indictment” , told AFP the Nice prosecutor Xavier Bonhomme, who added that “the investigation continues”.
Fine
Swiru Holding AG has “agreed to pay a public interest fine of a total amount of 1.4 million euros,” said the Nice prosecutor’s office in a statement. It has also already returned, through a subsidiary, more than 10.3 million euros to the French tax authorities “in respect of tax evaded”, according to the Prosecutor’s Office.
“The investigations revealed the concealment of part of the price of the sale of the said villa, through the interposition of companies domiciled in particular abroad, including the public limited company under Swiss law Swiru Holding AG. The operating mode thus enabled the various parties to the sales contract to voluntarily conceal part of the sums subject to tax, ”detailed the Prosecutor’s Office.
Banal hideout
The business had started in 2014 on a banal hideout of the narcotics brigade. Suspicious cash movements were spotted and the trail went up to the Russian oligarch.
The 2008 purchase of the villa “Yesterday” for 35 million euros – an underreported amount compared to the price of 127 million actually paid according to the investigators – had not attracted attention. Notary, real estate agent, lawyer, administrator: many local actors had been indicted in this case, and some are still today.
Arrest
In November 2017, the Russian senator’s arrest on his jet descent in Nice (South-East of France) had been strongly criticized by Moscow. For a time, he had been placed under house arrest in Nice. His lawyers had managed to cancel the first indictment before the justice relaunched the case in March 2019.
With a heritage estimated at more than $ 16 billion by the last Forbes 2020 ranking, Sulayman Kerimov, originally from Dagestan, is one of the richest men in Russia. (ats / nxp)
Created: 13.05.2020, 22h12
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