High-end real estate agency Sotheby’s International Realty has listed for sale the sprawling French property of former Czech prime minister Andrej Babis which was first revealed in the Pandora Papers by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The $24.7 million villa, located in the town of Mougins, near Cannes, was at the center of the 2021 investigation into the secret offshore dealings of the Czech billionaire-turned-politician, who was one of dozens of politicians and public officials from around the world who used shell companies in secrecy jurisdictions to shield their assets from public scrutiny.
ICIJ and its media partners found that, in 2009, Babis used a Panama-based financial service provider to set up shell companies in the British Virgin Islands, Washington, D.C., and Monaco, and move $22 million through the firms to secretly buy the lavish estate named Chateau Bigaud.
Following the revelations, French authorities launched an investigation into Babis’ acquisition of the property, as part of a probe into allegations of money laundering, Le Monde reported. The investigation is ongoing.
Babis, a businessman who made his fortune running the Agrofert conglomerate, bought the property before he founded a centrist political movement called ANO, Czech for “Yes” and an acronym that translates as “Action of Dissatisfied Citizens.”
However, asset declaration forms obtained by Investigace.cz, ICIJ’s Czech media partner, showed that, at the time he was Czech Republic’s prime minister, neither the chateau property nor the companies involved in its ownership appeared in documents that he had filed, as required by Czech law, since his entry into politics.
Babis, who didn’t respond to ICIJ’s questions on the property deal, has publicly denied wrongdoing and said he did “nothing illegal or wrong.”
The website of Sotheby’s International Realty for the first time shows detailed photos of the property which was built in 2008 and comprises two pools, a tennis court, a wine cellar and a grotto.
A spokeswoman for the agency’s Cannes office declined to provide details on the seller, citing client confidentiality reasons. She told ICIJ that the property has belonged to the same owner for more than 10 years and was used as a “secondary home.” Some potential buyers have visited it but “nothing serious for the moment,” it’s still on sale, the spokeswoman said.
Babis’ ownership and purchase of the property in Southern France was in sharp contrast to his cultivated image as the politician who vowed to fight unemployment and corruption and increase government transparency and tax revenues.
Experts interviewed by ICIJ in 2021 said the offshore arrangement used by Babis to buy the chateau could have reduced his tax bill while hiding his ownership of the property from the public.
Days after ICIJ revealed Babis’ secret offshore deals in October 2021, his ANO party lost the country’s parliamentary election. Last year, he unsuccessfully ran for president.
Babis recently co-founded the far-right Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament alongside Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán and Austria’s Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl.
