Italy seizes millions ‘embezzled’ from actress Ursula Andress
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Swiss actress Ursula Andress had filed a complaint alleging a “progressive and significant depletion of her assets” by individuals charged with managing her finances.
PHOTO: AFP
ROME – The Italian authorities said on March 26 that they had seized €20 million (S$29.7 million) of assets in Tuscany, including property, vineyards and olive groves, allegedly bought with money embezzled from Bond girl Ursula Andress.
The 90-year-old actress from the first James Bond film Dr No (1962) had filed a complaint in her native Switzerland alleging a “progressive and significant depletion of her assets” by individuals charged with managing her finances, Italy’s financial crimes police said in a statement.
Prosecutors in the Swiss canton of Vaud built a picture of a “systematic misappropriation of financial resources” worth around 18 million Swiss francs (S$29.1 million) carried out through multiple opaque transactions, it added.
The money was traced to Italy, where prosecutors in Florence took up the case and police began following the paper trail.
They tracked it to a real estate complex in San Casciano in Val di Pesa, near Florence, consisting of 11 real estate units and 14 plots of land used as vineyards and olive groves, as well as works of art and other assets, the statement said.
“The Judge for Preliminary Investigations of the Court of Florence, fully endorsing the prosecution’s position, ordered the seizure of the entire illicit profit, up to the amount of 18 million Swiss francs, to be enforced against the identified assets,” it added.
No suspects were identified.
Andress surged to fame thanks to a scene in Dr No, in which she emerged from the sea onto a Caribbean beach in a white bikini, a knife at her hip and a seashell in each hand.
That performance opposite Scottish actor Sean Connery launched a career in film and television that lasted more than two decades. AFP
