Villa of former Russian industry minister Viktor Khristenko seized on the French Riviera

A villa belonging to former Russian industry minister Viktor Khristenko has been seized on the French Riviera

A court in Paris ruled that the seizure of a villa on the French Riviera belonging to former industry minister Viktor Khristenko was lawful (he now holds the post of president of the Business Council of the Eurasian Economic Union).

The property had been seized back in October 2022. The seizure order that was challenged in court says that Khristenko and his wife Tatyana Golikova, (a deputy prime minister in the Russian government) are “suspected of possessing significant concealed assets, including real estate in Spain, Portugal, and France.”

As the newspaper Le Monde explains, this ruling is important for financial investigators who are searching for Russian real estate acquired in a “questionable manner.” The court effectively upheld the principle under which the owners themselves must prove the lawful origin of the funds.

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Villa of former Russian industry minister Viktor Khristenko seized on the French Riviera

Paris’s Court of Appeal ruled that the seizure of a villa on the French Riviera belonging to former Russian industry minister Viktor Khristenko was lawful, Le Monde writes, citing a judicial source.