The spy story on the escape of Artem Uss, the manager and son of an oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, who was to be extradited to the USA but fled Italy in March 2023, also touches Sardinia. A Russian resident in Switzerland was arrested in the investigation by the Carabinieri of the investigative unit and the prosecutor of Milan Giovanni Tarzia: Dimitry Chirakadze, known as Dima, 54 years old, was stopped by the Carabinieri at Fiumicino airport, he had just disembarked from a flight coming from Olbia.

The investigations into the manager's evasion had already led the investigators to Sardinia: a year ago the staff of the Economic-Financial Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza (Provincial Command of Sassari) had within a few hours executed the decree freezing the share owned by the Uss family in the holding company that controls the Don Diego hotel, in Loiri Porto San Paolo . The luxury hotel is registered in the name of Luxury Sardinia Srl, 40 percent of which is held by the Cypriot company Dunegenes Tarding Limited , in turn controlled by a trust attributable to the Uss family.

The investigation revealed "the direct involvement of the wife" of the arrested man, Lyubov Orlova, who was part of the board of directors of the Loiri Porto San Paolo hotel. Also from the documents it emerges that Dima was also in business with the Uss family in the Don Diego hotel. The hotel manager, intercepted, said: «This Dimitry wants to have clarity regarding the regularity of the accounts and expenses incurred» for the structure.

The interceptions

According to "Vlado the old man", i.e. Vladimir Jovancic, a 51-year-old Bosnian, arrested in recent months as part of the commando that made Artem Uss flee from Italy, the entrepreneur's wife handed him "7 thousand euros in cash" for the purchase of one of the used "exfiltration" machines . This can be read in the order that sent the organizer Dima to prison. Here, all the meetings, including in luxury hotels and restaurants, between "Vlad", Uss's wife and Chirakadze, are also reconstructed step by step, and passages from the Bosnian's minutes are also read: «The Russian gentleman who was with us - he explained - he had everything proposed, he was in charge of how the operation moves." Srdan Lolic, one of the eight suspects in total, including his wife, for Uss's "procured escape" (also to his load there is an ordinance). Lolic himself would have said to Jovancic: "Let's go to Italy because there is that rich man who wants us to help him."

The escape

Uss was taken in four cars from Basiglio, in the Milan area, across the border to Serbia and from there flew by plane to Russia. The arrest is the second tranche of the investigation which in recent months had led to another precautionary custody order against 6 people. Dima, recipient of a detention order in prison for "procured escape in conspiracy, with the aggravating circumstance of the transnational crime", as explained by the Milan prosecutor Marcello Viola, is "considered one of the promoters and organizers of Uss's escape" by Basiglio, where he was under house arrest awaiting extradition. The arrested person is a "Russian entrepreneur co-founder of the Pravo.ru group, owner of the electronic justice system of the same name which provides assistance to the websites of Russian courts", a "structure" which "also records an important presence in the media system Russian online specialized in legal journalism".

He is also "a shareholder in numerous Russian companies together - the prosecutors write - with members of the Uss family, even with top management positions". And he is a «belonging to the Russian aristocracy, as a descendant of a Grand Duke of Georgia, and is married to a wealthy Russian woman with whom he manages further numerous and complex business and corporate assets of international importance, in part of which are involved the members of the Uss family".

Chirakadze is "part of a higher level, from an organizational point of view" compared to the commando (three already arrested) who favored the "escape". He would have, as the prosecutors write, "monitored the outcome of the decision of the Court of Appeal of Milan on the possible extradition" to the United States which was, then, "unfavourable" and "such as to induce him", therefore, "to implement the plan he had organized in the meantime by preliminarily contacting the members of the gang who then carried out the escape". The 54-year-old, "contact person and organizer" of the escape plan and who lived in the canton of Geneva, as explained by the Prosecutor's Office, was present, in the organizational phase, "at the main meetings with the members of the gang that ensured the escape". And he would have "maintained constant contact with the family members of Artem Uss", 41 years old, "in order to supervise the phases of organizing and carrying out the exfiltration". He would have met "on several occasions the members of the gang after the exfiltration had taken place, in foreign territory".

(Unioneonline/D)

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