Italian finance guard seizes £35m in assets from Russian tycoon

The Italian Finance Guard in Florence has confiscated assets worth approximately £35 million from a Russian entrepreneur. The entrepreneur, who represented an international grain trading company, invested part of the money in a thirteenth-century castle in Florence, as reported by the service cenyrolnicze.pl.

The Finance Guard of Florence (Italy) took over the assets of the Russian businessman Oleksiy Fiodorychov, the owner of the companies TIS-Zerno and TIS-Mineral Fertilizers. The corporation is involved in grain trade.

The service further reports that the state grain corporation officials made agreements through which they sold Ukrainian grain at reduced prices. "The money for the delivered grain was never paid, however. As a result, the state corporation suffered over £49 million losses. During the investigation, it was found that part of these funds was used to purchase the castle in Florence," it stated.

The businessman in Ukraine is suspected of bribing state officials and is estimated to have defrauded a public company dealing in agricultural products out of £49 million, and is also suspected of money laundering.

On 21 May, the Council of the European Union approved a plan to allocate profits generated from frozen Russian state assets to support Ukraine. The funds will be transferred to Kyiv through a specially created Ukraine Relief Fund (URF).

The first tranche of interest from frozen Russian assets is expected to reach Ukraine next month.

Russian assets worth approximately £257 billion are to remain frozen until Russia pays for the damage done to Ukraine. According to World Bank estimates, rebuilding Ukraine will cost approximately £428 billion.