The villa belonging to Russian national Artur Ocheretny, Vladimir Putin’s ex-wife’s new husband, was seized by French authorities on December 6, 2023, according to a report by the French business publication Challenges.
The empty villa, built by wealthy Anglo-Belgian financier Alfred Loewenstein in the 1920s, is located in the commune of Anglet, near the upscale French resort town of Biarritz on the Atlantic coast. It was originally named Villa Souzanna in honor of its patron, the widow of a London banker, but is also known as “Rêverie.” The structure, which resembles a Greek temple, features a peristyle with a curved pediment adorned with a bas-relief by a pair of famous French sculptors, the brothers Jan and Joël Martel.
Covering 5,000 square meters, the property was purchased in December 2013 — half a year after Vladimir Putin and Lyudmila Putina’s divorce — for 5.4 million euros ($5.74 million) by Artur Ocheretny, as was reported by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). The property was previously searched as part of an investigation by JUNALCO (National Jurisdiction for Combating Organized Crime) — a division of the Paris public prosecutor’s office.
Lyudmila Ocheretnaya (formerly Lyudmila Putina), was married to the Russian president from 1983 to 2013. Her 2015 marriage to Ocheretny — an Ironman triathlon aficionado more than 20 years her junior — was kept secret until 2016, when journalists discovered that she had changed her last name.