MOSCOW – Suleiman Kerimov, a Russian billionaire and senator, was charged with laundering gains from tax evasion in Nice and prohibited from leaving the region.

Kerimov, whose family controls Russia’s biggest gold producer, Polyus PJSC, is required to surrender his passport and post €5-million bail, Nice prosecutor Jean-Michel Pretre said by phone Thursday. Polyus shares dropped to the lowest in a week in Moscow on Wednesday.

The Kremlin vowed to defend Kerimov, and a top Parliamentarian warned the move may be the start of a “witchhunt” in the West against Russia’s elite. The case is a blow to one of Russia’s wealthiest men, a billionaire who’d spent years cultivating his reputation and financial ties in the West. In Russia, he’s also a prominent politician with close ties to top officials in the government and state companies.

The Foreign Ministry sent a note to the French authorities that Kerimov has diplomatic immunity, the state-controlled RIA Novosti news service said Wednesday, citing Konstantin Kosachev, a fellow senator. Kerimov was detained Monday evening at the Nice airport.

“We feel confident that given the continuous legal work we have done, he’s fully in compliance with relevant laws and he’ll be able to demonstrate that in any proceeding that he may face,” said Paul Butler of Akin Gump, a US-based lawyer for Kerimov, adding that the billionaire had been “released on his own recognizance.”

It’s up to the investigative judge in charge of the case to decide whether the matters under examination are relevant to Kerimov’s duties and protected by immunity, according to the French Foreign Ministry.

Kerimov is suspected of acquiring several properties on Cap d’Antibes through nominees and under-declaring the prices, and may owe “tens of millions of euros" in tax, Agence France-Presse reported, citing an unidentified person.

BUSINESS EMPIRE
As a member of Parliament, Kerimov, 51, is required to distance himself from his business empire and forbidden from directly holding foreign assets. In November 2016, his son Said, a 22-year-old student at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, became the sole beneficial owner of the company controlling Polyus, according to a regulatory filing.

The stock closed down 1.3% in Moscow on Wednesday after earlier plunging 5.1%, the most since 2015.

Nice has been bad news for Kerimov, Russia’s 21st-richest person, with a fortune estimated at $5.5-billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In 2006, the billionaire’s doctors had to place him in a coma after his Ferrari crashed and burst into flames in the French Riviera resort city.

In March, Nice-Matin reported that law enforcement authorities searched Villa Hier in the south of France, one of several properties in the country that the newspaper attributes to him. Kerimov’s representative denied he’s the owner, according to the Vedomosti newspaper at the time.