Police in France have detained the Russian tycoon Alexey Kuzmichev and raided two of his properties in connection with alleged tax evasion, money laundering and sanctions violations.
The French financial prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday that searches had taken place a day earlier at Kuzmichev’s Paris home and an estate in in the Mediterranean Var region.
Kuzmichev was still detained on Tuesday but had not yet been charged. His lawyer, Philippe Blanchetier, declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.
Kuzmichev, one of the founders of Russia’s Alfa Bank, was sanctioned by the EU shortly after the start of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine for his “well-established ties to the Russian president”.
According to the EU, Kuzmichev was “actively supporting materially or financially and benefiting from Russian decision-makers responsible for the annexation of Crimea or the destabilisation of Ukraine”.
In the same ruling, the EU also sanctioned Kuzmichev’s Alfa Bank partners Mikhail Fridman, German Khan and Petr Aven.
French customs agents last year seized the billionaire’s 26-metre (86ft) yacht La Petite Ourse, as part of the sanctions, a move that sparked a legal battle between authorities and Kuzmichev.
Forbes magazine lists Kuzmichev, 61, who set up Alfa Bank with his colleagues in 1990, is the 61st richest person in the world, with a total fortune of £5.3bn.
Following sanctions against him, Kuzmichev sold his stakes in the bank last year to Andrei Kosogov, an Alfa Bank shareholder who is not under sanctions.
Kuzmichev is one of the few sanctioned Russian oligarchs who stayed in Europe after the war in Ukraine began.
His business partner Fridman, who is also sanctioned in the UK, flew back to Moscow earlier this month, while Khan returned to Russia last year.
Last week London’s high court declined Fridman’s request to spend thousands of pounds a month on the the upkeep of his London mansion, containing a £44m art collection.
While some oligarchs have backed Vladimir Putin’s invasion, Kuzmichev is one of the few major businesspeople to have spoken out against the war, albeit in guarded terms.
“My mother was Ukrainian, I have a huge number of relatives and friends there,” Kuzmichev told the Russian Forbes website last year, adding that he agreed with Fridman, who said that the conflict was a “tragedy” and that war “can never be the answer”.
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Russia would be able to defend Kuzmichev’s rights once Paris provided detailed information about his case.
“As far as I understand, he is a citizen of the Russian Federation so we should receive information about the detention through our diplomatic mission,” Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters.
“Once we receive the information, and if the detainee so wishes, we will of course assist in protecting his rights as a Russian citizen.”
