Billionaire Oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev Detained In Monaco

Dmitry Rybolovlev is a Russian billionaire and the owner of Monaco's soccer club. He's been detained for questioning in Monaco in relation to a corruption case according to the Le Monde newspaper. Rybolovlev is a fertilizer magnate but is most well known for his art savvy and his expensive divorce. He formerly owned Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, the most expensive piece of art to ever sell in an auction, fetching a whopping $450.3 million. Rybolovlev, who bought the painting four years earlier for $127.5 million, made a hefty profit.

Rybolovlev and his ex-wife Elena, for a time, had the most staggeringly expensive divorce of all time. He was slated to pay her a $4.3 billion settlement. However, he appealed it and ended up paying $604 million, a relative bargain.

In the real estate world, Rybolovlev purchased a $95 million Palm Beach estate from Trump Properties in 2008 and then tore it down. A trust under his daughter's name also bought a Manhattan condo for a then-record $88 million.

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Rybolovlev is also on the list of Russians with close ties to Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin that the U.S. is threatening to sanction.

He was detained on November 6th. His home in Monaco was searched. It is believed that Rybolovlev attempted to defraud European soccer's Financial Fair Play rules by using a fake marketing deal to put money into his soccer team, which has been struggling financially. That money allegedly comes from one of Rybolovlev's offshore companies.

Rybolovlev saved AS Monaco from bankruptcy in December 2011 when he purchased a 66% stake in the team. Since then he has given financial support to the team. The team won the French championship in 2017 and reached the final four of the Champions League.

On November 8th, it was revealed that Rybolovlev was being questioned in relation to the role he played in attempting to influence Monaco's law enforcement investigators  in a long-running dispute with Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier. Rybolovlev alleges Bouvier conned him out of $1 billion by inflating the price of 38 pieces of art he bought over a decade. Rybolovlev is suing Bouvier in Monaco, Singapore and Switzerland. Bouvier has denied wrongdoing.

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