The president of the French luxury empire LVMH investigated for money laundering
French billionaire Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive of luxury empire LVMH, and Russian oligarch Nikolai Sarkisov are being investigated for alleged money laundering in a tourist resort in the Alps, Paris prosecutors said on Thursday.
According to this source, which confirms information from the newspaper Le Monde, a report from the financial intelligence unit of the French Ministry of Economy on the operations of both magnates in the select ski town of Courchevel, known as a courtyard, was incorporated into the procedure. recreation of oligarchs.
Based on this report, the French newspaper claims that Sarkisov, 55, bought 14 real estate properties in Courchevel in 2018 for 16 million euros ($16.9 million) through a complex network of companies in France, Luxembourg and Cyprus.
Officially, the buyer was the company La Flèche. The oligarch's name does not appear in its statutes, although he was the effective owner.
Through this firm he bought three other properties in the same ski resort for 2.2 million euros (2.3 million dollars) that generated a capital gain of 1.2 million euros to another company, Croix Realty, of the which is also the owner through another complex business network.
To finance these operations, Arnault, one of the world's leading fortunes and owner of LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy), transferred 18.3 million euros ($19.3 million) to Sarkisov.
He then purchased the entire La Flèche firm, becoming the effective beneficiary of these properties.
Investigators from the French Ministry of Economy, cited by Le Monde, consider that this network seeks to “hide the exact origin of the funds” and “disguise the effective beneficiary of all these operations, that is, Bernard Arnault.”
Requested by AFP, the LVMH group declined to comment.. A spokesman told Le Monde newspaper that the operation was “carried out in the strictest respect for the law.”
The oligarch's entourage, cited by Le Monde, stated that the capital gain from the operation was only “a few hundred thousand euros” and Sarkisov “was not personally involved” in it.