German police and customs officials today searched several properties in southern Germany belonging to a Russian national that have been seized under European Union sanctions.customs officials said.

A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov was the target of the operation.

The legal representative of Russian-Uzbek oligarch Alisher Usmanov, which was sanctioned after Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine, had no immediate comment when contacted by Reuters.

A special committee called “Matryoshka”, set up by Germany’s Central Sanctions Service (ZfS), said in a statement that officers searched properties in the greater Munich area and Lake Tegernsee in Bavaria.

Customs officials seized assets during a raid today at a villa on Lake Tegernsee in the Bavarian Alps. Several luxury cars were among the items seized from the mansion located in the town of Rothach-Egern. About 30 police and customs officials participated in the search of the villa, around which the officers had placed police tape.

Police and customs officials also raided a number of other properties in the greater Munich area and around Lake Tegernsee as part of a case against a Russian oligarch, Germany’s Central Sanctions Service (ZfS) said in a statement. which does not name the oligarch.

Russian oligarch, which was the target of the raid, is on the European Union sanctions list, sources told dpa. A spokesman for the ZfS said the targeted individual is listed in Annex I of EU sanctions regulations.

The EU imposed heavy sanctions on Russian oligarchs and Russian companies after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

According to a spokesman for the ZfS, the German police, tax officials and customs officials were involved in the operationcarried out pursuant to court-issued search warrants.

EU sanctions mandate that all assets owned or held by a person are frozen and cannot be transferred or disposed of, the ZfS spokesman said. But he declined to provide further information about today’s raids, citing secrecy surrounding police tactics.

In September 2022, German police searched Usmanov’s villa in the aristocratic resort of Rothach-‘Egern on the banks of the Tegernsee. However, a court later ruled the raids illegal.