“Clean Villa” Operation
// Spanish have swept the construction market from Georgian Gastarbeiters
Scandal
The Spanish Prosecutor’s Office put a prominent businessman Tariel Oniani, earlier known as “thief in law”, on an international wanting list yesterday. He is suspected of organizing a criminal group, money laundering and transferring illegal immigrants from Georgia. The police undertook a large-scale “Wasp” operation but the businessman managed to escape. His 12-year-old daughter found herself in custody.
Last week’s “Wasp” operation was one of the largest in Europe for the past years. It involved 400 policemen who engaged in armored troop-carriers and helicopters. They conducted some 50 searches in Barcelona, Aliquant, and at the resorts of Marbella, Fuenjirolle, Benalmadene and Torremolinose where offices of Tariel Oniani’s companies are situated running construction business. Over 100 builders from Georgia with no Spanish work or resident’s permits were detained. They were put in special centers for illegal immigrants. 28 more people were arrested on the charges of the creation of an illegal organized group and money laundering “by investing in real estate”. All of them were heads and founders of the construction firms that built villas at Mediterranean resorts recruiting work immigrants. Mr. Oniani managed to escape from police.
Tariel Oniani was born in the miner’s town of Tkibuli in 1952. His father died in a mine. Tariel was first convicted of robbery and theft at the age of 17. He served the total of 8 terms in prison. In 80s, he was considered the most “authoritative” Moscow “thief in law”. In 90s, Tariel Oniani moved to Paris. Later, when several criminal cases were initiated against him, he moved to Spain. He owns a major package of stock in Georgian Aerzena airlines. Tariel Oniani ran construction business in Spain.
The police managed to arrest his friend and assistant Besik Liparteliani who recruited to Spain more that 800 descendants from Svanetia, Georgia, the police report. Gvantsa, Mr. Oniani’s 12-year-old daughter, was put in the so-called closed house for minors (in essence – a prison for teenagers).
Despite the fact that Mr. Oniani has a Grecian citizenship, it is in Georgia that this operation caused s stir. The session of the Georgian Parliament’s bureau demanded that the chairman of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs Konstantin Gabashvili make inquiries with the Georgian Foreign Ministry on what was happening in Spain. Mr. Gabashvili said he had contacted both the Georgian Embassy to France [Georgia does not have an embassy in Spain] and the Foreign Ministry. He learnt that only two of detainees were Georgian citizens. Gvantsa Oniani “is likely to be realized soon”, he said.
“It looks like a girl has been taken hostage,” Georgian parliament’s speaker Mikhail Machavariani maintains. “It is a 12-year-old girl, she must be released, not matter whose daughter she is.”
Representatives of the Georgian community in Spain appealed to a court in Barcelona yesterday seeking the release of the “gangster’s” daughter on bail or on guarantee. But the request was turned down.
The Spanish party said Gvantsa Oniani would be released from the teenagers’ prison as soon as her parents came to take her, the Georgian foreign ministry reports. However, Mr. Oniani will not be able to come to Barcelona personally.
“I knew this man [Tariel Oniani]. I met him in Paris a long time ago,” businessman Alimzhan Tokhtakhunov told Kommersant. “I would not say he’s a bad man. He is a businessman with good connections. I think this is a provocation, the same as was directed at me [Mr. Tokhtakhunov was accused of pressuring figure skating judges at the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002 but was acquitted by an Italian court]. You see, it’s summer in Europe now. It’s dead boring there in summer, and they need to amuse people, their voters, and, at the same time, show they earn the voters’ salt. As for the rights of the former USSR citizens, they don’t care about them. All of us are criminals for them.”
Vladimir Novikov, Tbilisi; Alexander Zheglov
All the Article in Russian as of June 22, 2005
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