After the yachts, the villas in Sardinia of the king of metals are frozen and the one on Lake Como of the Kremlin TV presenter who cried on TV: “They take my villa away from me.” But Italy is ready to raise the bar: now it’s a hunt for offshore companies
Roustam Tariko, king of Vodka, honorary citizen of Olbia, has Villa Minerva in Porto Rotondo which he bought in 2006 for 15 million – from Veronica Berlusconi. Vasily Anisimov, a friend of Berlusconi, is the owner of the villa Il Tulipano, in Porto Cervo. Terra Services, based in London, controls Oleg Deripaska’s luxury properties worldwide through a network of subsidiaries (Deripaska is the aluminum tycoon already multi-sanctioned in the United States for events related to Russia’s foreign interference in the US elections that led to the election of Donald Trump). These houses include splendid villas in Saint-Tropez and, in Sardinia, the Villa Walkirie in Porto Cervo. Villa Merloni in Romazzino is owned by Alisher Usmanov, who has been seized a luxury property in Pevero since Friday, and who is – according to Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Dossier Center – the ultimate owner of eight other villas in Sardinia and of Villa Maramozza , on the tip of the Lerici cove. And then again yachts, villas, estates in Tuscany, company shares.
The mapping of the Italian assets and properties of the Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the EU – and of those who could be in the coming days – is engaging the Finance Police these days, among networks of offshore corporate boxes, hidden in tax havens and set up precisely for hide the real owner and the real origin of the money. A job that would be simpler if Italy had established the Register of ultimate beneficiaries, as required by European legislation to which Italy has not yet applied. Last Friday is only the first wave of the seizures of oligarchs’ assets. In the next few days, cross sources told La Stampa, other measures should arrive. The assets – frozen for six months with administrative measures issued by the Mef – will be managed by the Agenzia del Demanio. At least 143 million euros the value of the assets affected by the provision, which in addition to Usmanov’s villa del Pevero also involved the yacht of Alexei Mordashov, president of Severgroup, a Rossiya shareholder, defined by the US Treasury as “Putin’s bank”, which played an important role in the annexation process of Crimea and in the war in Ukraine. And that of Gennadiy Timchenko, Putin’s friend since the days of St. Petersburg and become extraordinarily rich with his rise to power. Vladimir Soloviev’s villas on Lake Como have also been frozen, presenter of Russian public TV, known for his anti-West and anti-gay speeches, the face of the Kremlin’s propaganda that after the announcement of the sanctions began to cry on TV for the fact that he would have to give up his Italian homes. The huge Airbus A340-300 adapted to a private plane from Usmanov, which often stops at Olbia airport, would instead be safe in Uzbekistan for a few days.
In the text of the sanctions the EU writes that Usmanov «took sides acting on behalf of President Putin and solved his business problems. According to the Fincen files, he paid $ 6 million to Vladimir Putin’s influential adviser Valentin Yumashev. Dmitry Medvedev, vice president of the Security Council of Russia and former president and prime minister of Russia, benefited from the personal use of luxury residences controlled by Mr. Usmanov. Therefore, he actively supported the Russian decision-makers responsible for the annexation of Crimea and the destabilization of Ukraine, materially or financially ”. A portrait distant from what is (was) his public image in Italy, built by financing the restoration of the Hall of the Horatii and Curiazi at the Capitoline Museums, of the Italian Embassy in Moscow, Villa Berg, or by donating a million to the Region of Sardinia to the start of the Covid pandemic. In 2017 he received the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. One of the many oligarchs that Italy has believed to be philanthropists and patrons. –
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