Russian Billionaire Rybolovlev Questioned by Police in Monaco

Nov 06 2018, 7:09 PMNov 06 2018, 8:53 PMNovember 06 2018, 7:09 PMNovember 06 2018, 8:53 PM

(Bloomberg) -- Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev was detained for questioning Tuesday at the request of a Monaco judge in relation to a probe into corruption and influence peddling, his attorneys said, confirming a report by French newspaper Le Monde.

Rybolovlev’s lawyers, Hervé Temime and Thomas Giaccardi, said their client was interrogated based on information retrieved from his lawyer’s phone, something that is the subject of an appeal in Monaco. The attorneys also said they plan to lodge a complaint over the breach of secrecy in the case.

“We regret the violation of the secrecy of the investigation, and we ask that Dmitry Rybolovlev’s presumption of innocence is rigorously respected,” the attorneys said in statement.

The billionaire’s residence in Monaco, La Belle Epoque, was searched Tuesday morning, according to Le Monde. Rybolovlev, who made an $11 billion fortune selling a pair of Russian fertilizer companies, has been feuding with Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier about the sale of more than $2 billion of artwork. Rybolovlev has alleged that Bouvier overcharged him by as much as $1 billion for a collection of masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin, Gustav Klimt and others.

Monaco’s justice minister, Philippe Narmino, took early retirement in September 2017 after Le Monde published an article featuring what it said were text messages between Rybolovlev’s lawyer Tetiana Bersheda, Narmino and other Monaco officials in the weeks preceding and following the arrest of Bouvier by Monaco police on Feb. 25, 2015. Bouvier was taken into custody on his way to a meeting with Rybolovlev and accused by Monaco prosecutors of fraudulently overcharging the Russian.

The text messages were discovered after a Monaco investigating magistrate asked Bersheda to hand over her phone because a lawyer for Tania Rappo, a Bulgarian resident of Monaco involved in the dispute, complained that Bersheda had illegally recorded conversations between the two women.