French authorities cooperate with Moscow to seize goods from exiled Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky
An exiled billionaire under investigation for stealing a fortune from a Russian bank has had two of his $20million motorboats seized by the French authorities in Antibes.
According to the Riviera Times, French officials impounded several of his possessions in his Côte d’Azur villa on February 17 and the two luxury boats, which were docked off the coast of Cap d’Antibes, at the request of the Russian prosecution office.
Boris Berezovsky is wanted by the Russian government for supposedly embezzling $13m from a national bank. He fled to London in 2000 and was granted asylum after he was accused of plotting a violent coup against the Putin government.
But Berezovksy has denied ownership of the seized boats.
He told the Moscow-based Ekho Moskvy radio station: “I have no yachts in France, I have only paintings, not important ones, but I have no information that anyone has seized them.”
The Russian tycoon claims that he will not face a fair trial in his native country due to his concerns over the lack of independence and impartiality in the Russian judiciary.
It’s not the only reason that Berezovsky has hit headlines this week, after he was given the go-ahead to sue Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich from London’s High Court of Appeal.
Berezovsky’s claims Abramovich used “threats and intimidation” to force him to sell shares in oil company Sibneft at a fraction of their value in the £2bn lawsuit.
