French court seizes villa of Russian-Armenian oligarch

A French court has seized the villa of Samvel Karapetyan, a Russian-Armenian business billionaire and owner of the Tashir Group.

The matter concerns a three-hectare property in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin (Alpes-Maritimes) in the French Riviera (Côte d'Azur), Caliber.Az reports citing Le Monde.

The value of the property, comprised of a main building of several floors, three swimming pools, a tennis court and a heliport, is estimated at more than 120 million euros.

Known to locals as Villa del Mare, the renamed Villa Maria Irina property is officially in the hands of Karapetyan. However, the National Jurisdiction Against Organised Crime (Junalco), which has launched a preliminary investigation into the money laundering is questioning this ownership. During the investigation, customs officers from the Financial Judicial Investigation Service found numerous items showing that the villa never actually left the control of Gazprom Neft, an oil subsidiary of Gazprom, which theoretically sold the property to Karapetyan in 2016.

According to documents analysed by Le Monde, Samvel Karapetyan bought shares in Maritime Villa Holding SNC, the owner of the property, from Gazprom Neft thanks to a €115 million loan from Gazprombank, which is owned by Gazprom and Yuri Kovalchuk, who is close to Vladimir Putin. The loan was provided by the Russian bank in exchange for a pledge of the villa.