TBILISI, DFWatch – The State Audit Service, which used to be called the Chamber of Control, has seized property and bank accounts of a company which they say belongs to opposition billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili.

The audit service also determined seventeen people to be law offenders and sent a dossier about the cases to court.

State Audit Service claims that after studying the evidence they found out that Burji Ltd bought up to 250 cars, which were worth several million lari. Those cars provided services to the political parties in the opposition Georgian Dream coalition.

The body earlier fined Ivanishvili a large amount of money, but claims the offending actions continued.

From January 1 to June 28 the company bought 54 cars valued at 8 644 630 lari and provided free services for Georgian Dream, the statement published today says. They considered this illegal donations implemented by companies and seized bank accounts and property. Now documents are sent to Tbilisi City Court for confirmation.

According to lawyers working for Ivanishvili, the businessman does not own any companies in Georgia. The Audit Service now writes that the owner of the company is registered offshore and the chair of the company in Georgia is Kakha Kobiashivli, son of Ivanishvili’s sister.

In order to find out the legality of recent donations by individuals to political parties, the Audit Service questioned 27 persons, out of which ten proved that their transfers were legal. They were supporters of different Georgian political parties, including the ruling party.

But the other 17 couldn’t prove that they had legally transferred money. Among them, only one person donated to the National Movement, others to Free Georgia – 4, National Forum – 7, Conservative Party – 4 and Georgian Dream – one person. Documents about these people have also been sent to Tbilisi City Court.

The Audit Service has suspicions about Burji Ltd and another company Management Service, which earlier was the reason for fining Bidzina Ivanishvili. Now the Audit Service claims these companies were doing rehabilitation work on offices used by political parties for free. The documentation in this case has been sent to Tbilisi City Court and the Prosecutor’s Office, as the service claims there were criminal violations.