Italian Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti signed a decree involving the arrest of the assets registered in the country of Artem Uss, who escaped from house arrest. This is reported by the publications Il Messaggero and Corriere della Sera.
As the journalists specified, we are talking about the arrest of 40% of the shares of Luxury Sardinia, owned by the Cypriot company Dunegenes Trading Limited, 160 thousand euros in the Banco di Sardegna branch, and also the villa in Basiglio, in which Uss was under house arrest. The management of these assets will be taken over by the state property agency.
Artem Uss is the son of the governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Alexander Uss. US authorities accuse him of smuggling military technology, purchasing dual-use electronics, and running schemes to sell Venezuelan oil through front companies. He and four other Russians were detained in Italy in October last year.
At the end of March, a court in Milan approved the extradition of Uss to the United States. After that, the man escaped from house arrest. The Italian authorities assume that the Russian special services helped him to escape. Immediately after Uss was detained in Italy, a criminal case was opened against him for money laundering in Russia, he was arrested in absentia and a wanted list was announced. This was probably done in order to extradite the man to his homeland. On April 4, a Russian court changed Uss' preventive measure to a written undertaking not to leave.
Two days ago, Alexander Uss resigned. According to him, this is due to the fact that Vladimir Putin offered him «a job at the federal level.»