The Italian tax police seized assets worth more than €141 million. They belong to an architect who designed a luxury estate on the shores of the Black Sea in Russia, which is believed to belong to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Reuters writes about it.
Tax officials said they had seized the assets of a "well-known professional" in the Italian city of Brescia for alleged tax offenses. The law enforcement officers refused to tell journalists the name of this person.
According to Reuters sources, the assets belonged to Lanfranco Cirillo, who designed an estate on the shores of the Black Sea near Gelendzhik, which is known as "Putinʼs palace".
Cirilloʼs lawyer did not respond to a Reuters inquiry.
In April, in an interview with Italian television, Cirillo said that he himself designed the building, but it was commissioned by a private group, and he had nothing to do with Vladimir Putin.
- On January 19, 2021, Alexei Navalny, who is currently in prison in Russia, published an investigation into "Putinʼs palace" as "Putinʼs biggest bribe." The palace is located in the Krasnodar Territory, in the city of Gelendzhik, its area is 17,691 square meters, and the area of the estate is equal to 39 principalities of Monaco. The value of the estate is estimated at 100 billion rubles (over $13.5 billion). On the territory of the estate, there is a church and a tea house with an area of 2,500 square meters. m, an underground ice palace and a tunnel with access to the sea. Nearby are vineyards, a chateau, and an oyster farm. Investigators claimed that the palace was built and maintained at the expense of two state-owned companies — Rosneft and Transneft (both headed by Putinʼs closest friends Ihor Sechin and Mykola Tokarev).
- On January 20, 2022, on the anniversary of the publication of their investigation, the team of Alexei Navalny published 479 real photos of "Putinʼs palace".