By: moher on Venerdì 12 Gennaio 2007 00:44
Dopo uno ...seccato...uno beccato..
Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Mikhail Prokhorov, the billionaire chief executive officer of OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, is being held in custody in France as part of an eighth-month investigation into prostitution.
Prokhorov was arrested with 27 other people in the Alpine ski resort of Courchevel two days ago and taken to Lyon for questioning, state prosecutor Xavier Richaud said by telephone from Lyon today. He can be held at least until Jan. 14, he said.
The arrest is ``absurd,'' Norilsk spokesman Sergei Chernitsyn said by telephone from Moscow today. ``Our managers are decent, law-abiding citizens.'' Norilsk's head of legal affairs and the company's deputy director, Denis Morozov, didn't answer calls by Bloomberg News to his Moscow office today.
Prokhorov, 41, is among Russia's richest unmarried men with a fortune of more than $7.6 billion, according to Forbes magazine. Together with partner Vladimir Potanin, he holds 54.8 percent of Norilsk, the world's biggest nickel producer, and 51 percent of OAO Polyus, the country's largest gold miner. The two men's Interros holding company has assets worth $15 billion.
Prokhorov was detained by police with an aide and several women, the Moscow-based Vedomosti newspaper reported earlier today. Richaud said Norilsk Vice President Oleg Baibakov, an aide identified as Dmitry Shatov, one other Norilsk employee and 10 women, all of them Russian, were among those arrested.
``The girls were not prostitutes, they were students or models,'' Richaud said. ``Mr. Prokhorov denied pimping.''