Law enforcement officers of France arrested the Swiss businessman Alexander Studhalter on the case of Russian senator from Dagestan Suleiman Kerimov, learned the publication Nice-Matin. This, according to him, occurred in November last year, but this is known only now.

A member of the Federation Council in France is accused of laundering money hidden in evading taxes. Kerimov, according to investigators, illegally carried to the republic large amounts of cash, which bought real estate through frontmen. It was Studhalter, according to law enforcement officials, "may have been a front man of the Russian senator in order to acquire a number of real estate objects." In particular, he, as Nice-Matin writes, is suspected of concluding deals with the owners of villas on the French Riviera, including la villa Hier au Cap d'Antibes in the commune of Antibes in the south of France. There, as previously reported Nice-matin, in mid-February last year, the police conducted searches.

Then the law enforcement officers, according to the publication, tried to establish the real owner of the villa (he, according to the documents is Studhalter, but his law enforcement authorities suspect that he acts as a cover for the real owner). So, the papers found during the investigative actions in the villa, as Nice-matin reported, including the account of the draper for € 580 thousand, could testify that in fact this object is owned by Suleiman Kerimov.

The area of ​​the villa Hier in the commune of Antibes is 12 thousand square meters. According to the French investigators, the price of its purchase did not correspond to the market price (it was officially bought for € 35 million, in reality, € 61 million was allegedly transferred to the seller's account in Switzerland). The French law enforcement authorities believed that during the sale and purchase part of the money went to Switzerland, bypassing the tax authorities of France.

Assistant Kerimov Alexei Krasovsky earlier information that the senator owns real estate on the Cote d'Azur denied.

The senator himself in the investigation of this production was detained at the airport in Nice November 20 last year. The prosecutor's office asked him to arrest him, but the court refused to do so. On December 6, 2017, a member of the Federation Council left him under a written undertaking not to leave the country, having set a pledge of € 40 million.