The Financial Guard of Italy seized the property of the architect Lanfranco Cirillo. According to La Repubblica, the 63-year-old businessman, who has Russian citizenship, is under investigation because he did not declare income in the amount of tens of millions of euros from 2013 to 2019.
According to the newspaper, among the seized property – real estate, a helicopter, bank accounts, jewelry, works of art by famous authors and various other luxury items.
Cirillo previously lived in Russia. In February, in an interview with the Giornale di Brescia newspaper, he said that he had implemented a number of important projects in Russia and brought "the best examples of Italian craftsmanship to the homes of many influential people."
In 2014, by decree of President Vladimir Putin, Lanfranco Cirillo received Russian citizenship.
In March, four Cirillo villas in Italy were raided. Italian prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for the architect in February. This was reported by the newspaper Il Giornale di Brescia. According to the publication, a Eurocopter EC130 helicopter was seized from the architect for 2 million euros, as well as 143 works of art. Among them are paintings by world famous artists Picasso, Cezanne, Kandinsky, Modigliani and Chagall. How the canvases got to the architect is not specified. Georgy Alburov, an employee of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, believed that the paintings were taken from the Hermitage funds. According to the investigator, Putin paid off the architect with them.
In January 2021, FBK, founded by Alexei Navalny, published an investigation about a palace on the Black Sea coast near Gelendzhik. Investigators estimated the cost of its construction at 100 billion rubles. The FBK claimed that the palace was built for Putin and designed by Cirillo.