Italian financial police announced Thursday the seizure in Tuscany of goods worth around 20 million euros from funds allegedly fraudulently stolen from Swiss actress Ursula Andress, famous for being the first “James Bond girl”.
The case begins with a complaint filed in Switzerland by the actress, 90 years old, who had noted a “progressive and significant loss of her assets” attributable to people “responsible for the management of the financial assets” of Ursula Andress, according to a press release from the Italian police.
The Swiss investigation demonstrated “a systematic activity of misappropriation of financial resources, estimated at around 18 million Swiss francs”, or nearly 20 million euros, thanks to numerous opaque operations, according to the same source.
These sums would have been the subject of investments in foreign companies whose objective was to hide their illicit origin.
This same Swiss investigation established links between the embezzled sums and the Tuscan territory, requesting mutual legal assistance from the Italian authorities.
The Italian financial police managed to trace the path of this money thanks to “in-depth documentary analyses”, according to the same source.
11 real estate units and 14 lots
The money was “finally reinvested in the management of a prestigious real estate complex located in the territory of the municipality of San Casciano in Val di Pesa”, about fifteen kilometers south of Florence, “composed of 11 real estate units and 14 plots of land intended for viticulture and olive growing, as well as in works of art and other financial resources”, specifies the press release.
Ursula Andress became famous in 1962 with the film “James Bond 007 vs. Dr. No”, the first in the long series about the British spy.
She will subsequently tour with the biggest names of her time, including Elvis Presley, Anita Ekberg, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and the French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo.
