The Dutch authorities have seized a land in Amsterdam that reportedly belongs to Jorrit Faassen, the former son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The authorities from the Netherlands’ National Office for Serious Fraud, Environmental Crime and Asset Confiscation took action on May 12 in relation to a criminal investigation. The authorities have not provided any further details about the investigation.
The 1,432-square-meter plot is located in Duivendrecht, a village located about 6.4 kilometres (4 miles) from Amsterdam.
Faassen (42) is a Dutch businessman who was once married to Putin’s elder daughter, Maria Vorontsova.
The Guardian reported that Faassen had bought the land for construction (though the nature of it has not been revealed) and applied for a license two years ago, but his permit was halted after Putin’invasion. The area’s municipality reportedly stopped the project due to Faaseen’s “close ties” with the Russian leader.
The seizure was the result of a joint investigation carried out by the Guardian newspaper, the independent Russian news site Proekt Media and an investigative journalism platform called Follow the Money.
It comes two months after the US announced the launch of a fresh crackdown on persons and states involved in evading anti-Russia sanctions.
According to reports, the empty land was targeted by protesters immediately after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022. The agitators erected anti-Putin signs on the land and called on the Russian president to withdraw his troops from Ukraine and release jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
Putin’s daughters Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova were sanctioned by the European Union and the United States in April 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine.
However, The Guardian newspaper noted that Faassen is not named on any sanctions lists.
He is believed to have been recently questioned by authorities at a Dutch airport recently on suspicion of “sanctions evasion. Authorities had confiscated his mobile phone and laptop computer,” Proekt Media reported.
Who is Jorrit Faassen?
According to a Dtuch-based magazine Quote, Faassen was born in Leiderdorp in the Netherlands. He is the elder of two sons born to Jozef Faassen and Felicitas van de Stadt. His father was a naval officer in Willemstad, Curaçao until 1986, a colonel in the 1990s and then a head of department in the Royal Netherlands Navy.
It is claimed that Faasen married Putin’s daughter Vorontsova in 2008. Russian media said that the two share a young son together. It is unclear when Vorontsova and Faassen divorced.
An investigative report by Russia’s exiled independent news website Meduza and the US-funded broadcaster Current Time claimed that Vorontsova was in a relationship with a Russian energy company employee named Yevgeny Nagorny. She apparently gave birth to his child in 2017.
(With inputs from agencies)
