The soldiers of the provincial command of the Guardia di Finanza of Brescia, coordinated by the local prosecutor, carried out a preventive seizure – direct and by equivalent – against Lanfranco Cirillo63-year-old entrepreneur, known as “Putin’s architect” and other 44 Russian oligarchs, for tax crimes (smuggling and unfaithful declaration), money laundering, self-laundering and fraudulent transfer of valuables, for a total amount of over 141 million EUR.
Cirillo, Putin’s architect: “Proud of that villa, I celebrated the Italian flair”
by Paolo G. Brera
The investigations of the Brescia Economic-Financial Police Unit initially focus on a helicopter registered in Russia – for which the customs obligations had not been fulfilled – which revealed an alleged case of fictitious residence abroad. In particular, the professional is under investigation because he would not have declared income for tens of millions of euros from 2013 to 2019, “while maintaining in Italy the center of his family, emotional and economic-patrimonial interests”, according to the investigators. The investigation activities “focused on the finding of notable manifestations of wealth that were completely disproportionate to the declared taxable income, for which no adequate justifications were provided to ascertain their tax lawfulness”.
Based on the evidence that emerged, the investigating judge ordered the preventive seizure due to disproportion. Among the assets seized “luxurious homes, a helicopter, bank availability, cash, jewelry, works of modern and contemporary art by famous authors (paintings by Picasso, Cezanne, Kandinsky, De Chirico and Fontana, ed), as well as various other goods by luxury”.
Russia, the investigation by Navalnyj: from the architect to the furniture, “Putin’s palace” is “made in Italy”
by Rosalba Castelletti
Cirillo, an architect from Brescia but who has moved to Dubai for some time, Lanfranco Cirillo, according to an investigation by the Navalnyj Anti-Corruption Foundation, has built “Putin’s” pharaonic villa on the Black Sea, furnished with furniture from the most exclusive Italian companies and inspired by Berlusconi’s Villa Certosa. In Moscow he had opened and then closed the Masterskaya architecture studio. A year ago he told Repubblica that he had “in addition to this residence of some importance in Brescia – a charming 15th century villa renovated with modernist accents – I have a residence in Dubai, five villas on the Costa Smeralda, a beautiful house in Moscow and others in Madonna di Campiglio, New York “, denying that he was rewarded for Putin’s villa on the Black Sea with an adjacent one.