It has been alleged that the accomplices of Alexei Kalinichenko, the man who’d set up a pyramid scheme on Forex market and was charged with fraud in Russia, were detained in Italy. Infox.ru refers to the Italian La Nazione as stating that the people in question are a Russian subject and an Italian citizen presumably responsible for laundering Kalinichenko’s money.

Under the Russian law, Alexei Kalinichenko is accused of setting Global Gaming Expo (GGE) to deal in trading on Forex exchange market and of stealing over 1 billion RUR from 4,000 Russian nationals. The trading was actually performed by Livingston Investment, an offshore company, and via Bank24.ru (Kalinichenko being one of the bank’s BOD members).

The businessman promised a 30% to 200% annual ROI, with money borrowed through GGE. The company stopped paying its customers in August 2006.

Alexei Kalinichenko fled the country and was later found in Italy. The Russian law-enforcement agencies eventually managed to persuade the Italian authorities to extradite Kalinichenko to his home country, with the Supreme Court of Italy agreeing to the extradition, but the suspect escaped from house arrest and was finally detained by Interpol officers in Morocco.

According to Infox.ru, La Nazione apparently believes that Kalinichenko contracted a sham marriage with a 51-year-old Italian woman. The woman got ?30,000 and the suspect obtained a residence permit. With the help of his accomplices, Kalinichenko presumably transferred a portion of stolen money onto the accounts opened in Italian banks in the name of a dummy importer of Italian goods to Russia. The rest of the money was used to buy real estate, including a ?1.5m villa with twenty rooms, a garden, and a swimming pool.

La Nazione is referred to as stating that shortly before his detention, the man sold the villa to an acquaintance of his, a 56-year-old real estate agent. Florence’s public prosecution authorities appear to be positive that the Italian buyer was aware of Kalinichenko’s illegitimate activity, which was why the agent processed the transaction with the help of his firm that officially belongs to a third party.

Now a 38-year-old female Russian citizen and a 56-year-old Italian real estate agent have been detained in Florence upon a suspicion on money-laundering and aiding the businessman from Yekaterinburg in his illegal actions.

Infox.ru reports the woman alarmed the authorities by the fact that, despite not having an official job throughout all the many years she had been living in Italy, she kept on investing in real estate, in which activity she was aided by the second detainee. Two villas worth ?2.4m were confiscated from the detainees, alongside with Porsche Cayenne, Bentley, and Smart automobiles. They also had eleven bank accounts into the bargain.

The Russian citizen detained in Florence is now under house arrest until the end of the investigation, La Nazione reports.