Swiss investigate four people linked to Russian oligarch

The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland is investigating four individuals linked to Russian oligarch Suleyman Kerimov.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

In this context, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) has blocked €1.3 billion (CHF1.25 billion) on a provisional basis, it said, referring to information in the daily Le Temps.

As SECO indicated on its regularly updated website on Wednesday, the value of assets frozen in Switzerland as a result of sanctions against Russia amounted to CHF7.1 billion as of August 13. Added to this are 17 properties, sports and luxury cars, works of art, furniture and instruments belonging to individuals, companies or entities affected by the sanctions.

+ Switzerland’s secrecy blind spot hinders sanctions enforcement

When the particular importance of the offence justifies it, SECO can request the support of the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG). In the present case, SECO asked the OAG to open an investigation procedure after extensive preliminary research, the latter told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-ATS, referring to information from Le Temps.

Following an in-depth examination, the OAG considered that the facts reported to it fell within its jurisdiction and opened the criminal proceedings in question in November 2023, it added. The investigation is currently being conducted against four individuals and an unknown person on suspicion of violating the law on embargoes, in connection with the situation in Ukraine, and on suspicion of money laundering, it said.

Translated from French by DeepL/ts

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].