France's richest man, Bernard Arnault, the owner of the LVMH luxury goods conglomerate and the founder of the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, is reportedly under investigation in France on suspicion of money laundering. The investigation, first reported by Le Monde, is a “preliminary one”, according to the Paris prosecutor's office, meaning that Arnault has not been accused of money laundering.
The Paris district attorney confirmed to AFP that Arnault is included in an investigation launched in 2022 into real estate deals allegedly conducted by the Russian oligarch Nikolai Sarkisov, following information provided by the ministry of finance's anti-money laundering service, Tracfin.
Sarkisov is not listed under European sanctions following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but he is included on the list of businesspeople sanctioned by Ukraine for his close ties with the Kremlin.
The probe concerns properties in the luxury French ski resort Courchevel. Arnault owns two hotels there, one of them being Le Cheval Blanc. According to investigators, quoted by Le Monde, Sarkisov, in 2018, bought 17 units in a building next to this hotel, for €18.3m. The name of the oligarch, who made his fortune in the insurance business in Russia, does not appear in these transactions. Rather, the buyer is listed the company La Flèche. But, according to Tracfin, a series of complex financial transactions across a string of European companies leads to a Cyprus based firm, Arrowband, whose sole holder is Sarkisov.
The entire €18.3m operation was funded by Métropole 1850, a subsidiary of Bernard Arnault’s private holdings, according to Trafcin's investigation. A few months later, the same Métropole 1850 acquired the company that owned the building from Sarkisov, for €1.8m. Tracfin's investigation aims to discover the discrepancy in these prices. The sale of the real estate to himself allowed Sarkisov to make a profit of €1.2m, according to Le Monde.
Tracfin’s investigators state that Sarkisov acted as “a straw man hired to conceal the actual beneficiary, ie Bernard Arnault”.
Both parties have denied wrongdoing. Arnault’s lawyer, Jacqueline Laffont, stated “the transaction was perfectly legitimate” and that the allegations from the media are “absurd”. She adds: “Who could possibly imagine that the man who built Europe’s leading company would resort to money laundering for the extension of a hotel?“
A source close to Sarkisov confirmed the deal to Le Monde, but said his real estate firm had “taken all the risks” by buying the units one by one before reselling the building, which then became more valuable. "If any of the owners had refused to sell, the whole operation would have failed," he said.
Although the transaction took place four years before the current sanctions against Russia, Tracfin has renewed its investigations into Russian-owned properties in France, including those owned by Sarkisov. Another investigation for “bribery” and “criminal laundering” has been opened into a €3m consultant contract he signed in 2019 with former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
