A French court has seized a 120-million-euro villa on the French Riviera, the “real beneficiary” of which is Russian giant Gazprom, as part of a money-laundering investigation, Paris prosecutors announced Monday, confirming information from Le Monde.

The prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into the fact of money laundering with aggravating circumstances for actions committed since December 11, 2009 in Paris, Cyprus, Russia and Roquebrune-Cap-Martin (Alpes-Maritimes), regarding “Villa del Mare”, now “Villa Iryna Maria”. AFP reports.

Founded in 2009, Maritime Villa Holding bought the villa for €70 million in 2010 – its current value is estimated at around €120 million.

The beneficiary of this purchase through the companies Subville Sarl and Leyson Holdings Limited was the Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, according to the prosecutor’s office.

“There are indications that successive plans to acquire the villa were drawn up on behalf of various companies whose indirect owners would make Gazprom the beneficial owner,” the same source continued.

On February 12, according to the resolution of the prosecutor’s office, the villa and the shares of the owner company SNC Maritime Villa Holding were confiscated.

The Paris prosecutor’s office has launched a further investigation into the conditions under which assets belonging to Russian businessmen were purchased and financed.

Judicial authorities have seized Oleksandr Pumpiansky’s real estate: shares in companies linked to two wine estates in France, as well as various building sites and real estate, including a chalet in Haute-Savoie, in the French Alps, with a total value of approximately 35 million euros.

In another investigation in September 2023, a luxury chalet in Courchevel in the Alps, worth €24 million, was also seized.

Investigations are ongoing in each of these cases.