Last week, the web was abuzz with the news that billionaire Russian oligarch Dmitry Ryoblovlev had given his 22-year-old daughter the gift to end all gifts--an $88 million apartment at 15 Central Park West that had previously belonged to ex-Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill.

Now, rumor has it that the penthouse isn't the only real estate Ryoblovlev bought at the storied building last week.

The New York Observer reports that he also paid $8.4 million for a two-bedroom apartment on the building's third floor, apparently for use by daughter Ekaterina's security guards.

Ryoblovlev flatly denies he was involved in the purchase, with a spokesperson telling the Observer:

Neither Dmitry Rybolovlev, nor his daughter Ekaterina Rybolovleva, nor any companies connected to them have purchased apartment 3F at 15 Central Park West, New York City. The reports suggesting that they have are completely inaccurate. There have never been any plans or even any discussions about purchasing this apartment.

But the Observer says it has sources who insist the apartment belongs to Rybolovlev.

In any case, the photos of the place are pretty impressive--and satisfy a small piece of the craving we had for a look inside Weill's old apartment, which sold without ever producing listing photos.

The apartment is 1,987 square feet

It has North, South, and West exposures and a long hallway

It was sold by a healthcare exec who bought it in 2008 for $4.99 million

Please follow The Life on Twitter and Facebook.

Dmitry Rybolovlev, the Russian potash magnate who has recently been making all sorts of headlines in the real estate world, owns two of the most expensive homes in the United States.

Earlier this year, he purchased an $88 million penthouse at 15 Central Park West for his daughter, who is finishing a degree at Harvard Extension School.

And several years ago he paid what was then a record-breaking $95 million for Donald Trump's six-acre estate in Palm Beach, a huge sticker price considering Trump paid just $41.35 million for the property at auction, and that Palm Beach County appraised it for $56.1 million last year.

But both properties are completely unused, according to The New York Times' Alexei Barrionuevo.

They are at the center of a complicated divorce proceeding between Rybolovlev and his estranged wife, which is currently pending in Switzerland.

The Florida home was damaged after the air conditioning system failed, and is slated to be torn down, but has not been touched due to the ongoing court case, Barrionuevo writes.

And the Upper West Side penthouse currently "stands empty with nary a lamp in it," Rybolovlev's lawyer told Barrionuevo.

Now meet the big shots who live at 15 Central Park West >

Please follow The Life on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Last year when Formula One heiress Petra Ecclestone paid $85 million for the Spelling mansion in Holmby Hills, it was one of the most expensive real estate transactions in recent memory.

Impressively, she pulled off the deal after just two days of negotiating and paid a $65 million discount off Candy Spelling's initial asking price of $150 million.

But it seems that Ecclestone has a certain Russian oligarch to thank for making her deal so sweet.

According to Alexei Barrionuevo of The New York Times, Dmitry Rybolovlev, the billionaire who bought his daughter an $88 million apartment on Central Park West, had negotiated to by the Spelling mansion several months earlier.

Writes Barrionuevo:

One interesting twist in the script is that the deal to buy the Manor from Ms. Spelling, the widow of the producer Aaron Spelling, would most likely not have been possible — especially in the mere 48 hours it took to finalize — without another prospective buyer’s negotiation on the home with Ms. Spelling nine months earlier.

In late 2010 Dmitry Rybolovlev, the Russian potash fertilizer billionaire, quietly made a visit to Los Angeles with his eldest daughter, Ekaterina. He made offers on at least two of the most famous mansions in Beverly Hills and Holmby Hills, including the Spelling manor, before deciding not to buy a home on the West Coast, at least for now, according to people familiar with their deliberations who declined to be named for confidentiality reasons.

While Rybolovlev left the West Coast without buying any real estate, he appears to have primed Spelling for the sale to Ecclestone.

Barrionuevo continues:

It seems that Ms. Spelling was eager to sell for that price because Mr. Rybolovlev had already negotiated with her down to that number in 2010, said one person familiar with the discussions.

Now take a tour of Petra Ecclestone's new home >

Please follow The Life on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev is the largest shareholder in the Bank of Cyprus, with a 9.9% stake in the company.

He may have slept better this weekend when European officials announced that Cypriot banks would get a much-needed bailout, but on the condition that they accept a one-time tax on all deposits.

A lot of those deposits are held by Russian citizens, or Russians who've become Cypriot citizens.

But of course, very few of them are as fabulously wealthy with as much at stake as Rybolovlev, who caught Wall Street's attention last year when he bought ex-Citi CEO Sandy Weill's $88 million penthouse apartment for his 23 year-old daughter, Ekaterina.

According to Forbes, Rybolovlev is the 119th richest man in the world. He started out his career as a doctor, but abandoned that in 1990 to start Uralkali, a fertilizer company.

In 1996 he was accused (and acquitted) of plotting to kill a business partner and spent 11 months in jail— a slight rough patch. He sold his stake Uralkali in 2010 for $6.5 billion, but still has an investment fund comprised mostly of industrial holdings.

Rybolovlev is also holding a $300 million for a Monaco penthouse called La Belle Epoque, a Hawaiian villa he bought from Will Smith for $20 million, and Donald Trump's Palm Beach mansion, Maison de L'Amitie, which he bought for $95 million in 2008.

In 2011 he and other investors bought two-thirds of the Monaco football club, AS Moncao. He also owns a yacht called 'My Anna' worth $111 million.

Of course, with more money, as we know, there can also be more problems. In 2008 Rybolovlev's wife filed for one of the most expensive divorces in history.

Elena Rybolovleva also sued her husband in a New York Court and when he bought Weill's apartment, according to Bloomberg.

She alleged that her husband fraudulently transferred property he got during their marriage to buy the $88 billion penthouse in violation of a Swiss divorce Court order. She is also suing him for the Trump mansion in Florida.

At the same time, there have been conflicting reports for months about whether or not Cyprus and Russia have been working on a way for Rybolovleva, and other shareholders in the Bank of Cyprus, to increase their holdings and secure a $6 billion Russian loan for Cyprus in the process.

Rybolovleva would have to get special permission from the Cypriot Central Bank to increase his stake above 9.9%.

The Russian Finance Ministry at first denied these reports (which started getting attention in July of last year).

However, by the end of January 2013, Archbishop Chrysostomos II, the head of the Orthodox Church in Cyprus, was openly asking his Russian counterpart to convince Vladimir Putin to give Cyprus another loan — this one for $3.4 billion, says Bloomberg.

Maybe now Rybolovleva will get on board with the message, if he hasn't already. At Davos Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said that the country would be on board to help out  “when our European partners also give something.”

Looks like the Europeans figured out how to take something instead.

Please follow Clusterstock on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Russian fertilizer tycoon Dmitry Rybolovlev plans to level the $95 million Palm Beach property he bought from Donald Trump in 2008 because of mold problems, Gossip Extra reported.

The sale of the 33,000-square-foot property, dubbed Maison de L’Amitie, was the highest ever for a single-family home, netting Trump a more than $50 million profit, according to the site.

Mold has become a “Wal-Mart-size problem,” Gossip Extra wrote.

“I don’t care about the house,” Trump told Gossip Extra. “I bought it for $41 million, put in $3 worth of paint and gave it a good cleaning — and I sold it for the highest price ever for a single family home. I don’t know what he wants to do with it, and I couldn’t care less,” he said.

Rybolovlev, the billionaire owner of the A.S. Monaco Football Club, could chop up the 6.26-acre property, which includes a 475-foot-long beach, into as many as a dozen beachfront lots, the site said, citing an unnamed source. [Gossip Extra]

More from The Real Deal:

1. South Beach Setai $8.6M condo sale sets record
2. Morgans fighting bad deal it made in recession
3. High-end home sales smash records as South Florida market catches fire

SEE ALSO: Meet The Residents Of 'Billionaire Lane' In The Hamptons

Please follow The Life on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

We learned earlier this year that Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev bought Will Smith's $20 million Hawaiian mansion back in 2011.

Now Rybolovlev's soon-to-be ex-wife Elena Rybolovleva is suing him over the property, claiming that the fertilizer billionaire bought it to protect money that she could potentially win in the pair's ongoing Swiss divorce case, according to The Daily News.

This is not Rybolovleva's first lawsuit against her husband. She has also sued Rybolovlev over an $88 million NYC penthouse he bought, purportedly for his daughter, as well as Donald Trump's $95 million Palm Beach mansion, also purchased with their daughters' trust.

The Daily News reports that the trust in question has also bought a $300 million Monaco penthouse, players for Rybolovlev's Monaco soccer team, and two Greek islands for $156 million.

Dmitry Rybolovlev and his lawyers insist the purchases are legal since his children's trust was set up prior to the 2008 divorce filing. He defends the subsequent purchases, arguing that they were to secure the future of his two daughters, Ekaterina and Anna.

Rybolovleva's lawyer, David Newman of Day Pitney, told the New York Daily News that Rybolovlev "has been spending money like a drunken sailor." Newman says the real estate purchases violate the Swiss Supreme Court order that froze Rybolovlev's assets in an attempt to keep him from spending the billions he made during the marriage.

"The Swiss order is limited to the jurisdiction of the Swiss courts,” and does not apply globally, said Rybolovlev spokesman Sergey Chernitsyn.

Tetiana Bersheda, Mr Rybolovlev’s lawyer, said, “Sadly, now a divorce between the husband and the wife has turned into a war between the mother and her children. It is unfortunate that the children have become the target of their mother in her divorce proceedings.”

Currently worth $9.1 billion and number 119 on Forbes' list of billionaires, the Russian tycoon is no stranger to controversy. In 1996 he was accused (and later acquitted) of plotting to kill a business partner, and spent 11 months in jail.

He sold his stake Uralkali, a fertilizer company he started in 1990, in 2010 for $6.5 billion.

Rybolovlev and his wife have been battling in Swiss courts since 2008 — both show no sign of slowing down.

SEE ALSO: The Most Expensive Home You Can Buy In Every State

Join the conversation about this story »

When Donald Trump sold his sprawling Palm Beach, Fla., mansion for a whopping $95 million five years ago, the true identity of the buyer was a mystery.

That is no longer the case, as Russian billionaire Dmitri Rybolovlev has finally acknowledged his involvement in the purchase of the 515 North County Road home.

Rybolovlev told lawyers during a London deposition last month that he invested an undisclosed amount in the 2008 transaction, Palm Beach Post reported.

The billionaire said he continues to pay property taxes and cover maintenance costs at the mansion but denied that he is the true owner.

Attorneys for Rybolovlev’s estranged wife, Elena, pressed him for details during the deposition. Elena has sued Rybolovlev in Palm Beach Circuit Court in an attempt to receive half of the mansion’s value through a divorce.

Rybolovlev amassed his wealth through the potash fertilizer industry. The 33,000-square-foot oceanfront mansion used to be known in the town as the Gosman estate. [Palm Beach Post] — Eric Kalis

Join the conversation about this story »

GENEVA (AP) — A Swiss court has ordered a Russian billionaire to pay more than $4.5 billion to his ex-wife in what could become the biggest divorce settlement in history.

In papers delivered Monday to both parties, the Geneva Tribunal of First Instance said Dmitry Rybolovlev, an owner of the French soccer club AS Monaco, must pay 4,020,555,987.80 Swiss francs ($4,509,375,184.80) to ex-wife Elena Rybolovleva of Geneva. Both are aged 47.

The judgment also granted his ex-wife property worth 130.5 million francs ($146 million) in property in Gstaad, Switzerland, where the couple owned two swanky chalets. It awarded his ex-wife two other pieces of real estate in the ultra-wealthy area of Geneva known as Cologny, where the couple once lived together, but listed no value for either address. And it confirmed her custody of their 13-year-old daughter, Anna. The couple also has an adult daughter, Ekaterina.

Her lawyer Marc Bonnant called it "the most expensive divorce in history," an unheard-of amount for Switzerland and for Russian oligarchs.

But Rybolovlev's lawyer said that the judgment's cash order was likely to be whittled down in coming appeals.

"There will definitely be a new appellate review and therefore this judgment is not final given the existence of two levels of appeal in Switzerland," said Tetiana Bersheda.

A separate statement by Bonnant and two other lawyers in the case, Corinne Corminboeuf Harari and Caroline Schumacher, called the record judgment "a complete victory" for her and said that under Swiss law she was entitled to half the fortune he made during their marriage. Most of that fortune was transferred to Cyprus-based trusts in 2005.

The three lawyers said Monday's ruling demonstrated that "no one — not even a Russian tycoon who put his fabulous fortune into legal structures such as trusts and offshore companies — is above the law."

But Rybolovlev's lawyer suggested the opposite, praising the judgment for "confirming both the validity of the trusts created by Mr. Rybolovlev and the validity of the asset transfer to them that occurred long before his wife initiated divorce proceedings."

His ex-wife had demanded $6 billion from the man known as the "fertilizer king," whose fortune from potash mining once made him the world's 79th richest person. He is now ranked 147th on the Forbes list of billionaires, with an estimated fortune of $8.8 billion.

The couple met as university students in Perm, Russia, and married there in 1987. Divorce proceedings began in 2008, when Forbes estimated his worth at $12.8 billion.

A Geneva court had provisionally frozen Rybolovlev's assets in Switzerland and abroad, but it may prove difficult for Rybolovleva to obtain the money because Switzerland has no legal aid treaty with Cyprus.

In the United States, Rybolovlev and his daughter Ekaterina used trusts to acquire some of the priciest real estate in the country, including a penthouse apartment at Central Park West in New York and a mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.

SEE ALSO: The 17 Most Expensive Divorces Ever

Join the conversation about this story »

Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev "categorically" denied through his adviser on Friday that he had ever met President Donald Trump, amid questions over why Rybolovlev had flown into cities where Trump was campaigning before the November election.

"A number of theories have been circulating about the supposed relationship between Dmitry Rybolovlev and President Donald Trump. None of these theories has any foundation in fact,"Rybolovlev's adviser, Sergey Chernitsyn, said in a statement provided to Business Insider.

It was the first time Rybolovlev acknowledged that he was on his jet when it landed in Charlotte, North Carolina, minutes before Trump's plane landed and parked nearby. 

Rybolovlev's adviser insisted, however, that the billionaire "never met Mr. Trump personally and has no connection whatsoever to Mr Trump or his team of advisers," Chernitsyn added.

The response was the most expansive — and first official — statement Rybolovlev has given since photos began circulating on social media in November of his Airbus A319, dubbed M-KATE.

Theories began circulating, too, about why his jet — which spends most of its time flying between major European cities like London, Berlin, and Zurich, with sporadic trips to Los Angeles, Miami, and the Caribbean, according to flight records — flew to Las Vegas, Nevada, and Charlotte, North Carolina, the same days Trump did.

The timing raised questions about whether Rybolovlev met with Trump while their planes were parked at the same time in Las Vegas in late October and then in Charlotte, North Carolina, in early November.

"Particular attention has been focused on a trip made by Mr Rybolovlev to North Carolina," Chernitsyn said. "He was in North Carolina for a business meeting and we can state categorically that he did not have any contact with Mr Trump or any of his advisers at the time he was there.”

Chernitsyn did not mention Rybolovlev's presence in Las Vegas at the same time as Trump, but said that "Mr. Rybolovlev travels frequently to many different destinations, including destinations across the US," Chernitsyn continued. "If Mr Rybolovlev was physically in the same place as Mr Trump at any time, this was pure coincidence."

A White House official called the speculation "ridiculous" and characterized it as akin to a "conspiracy" in an email to Business Insider earlier this week.

"No member of the Trump campaign or Mr. Trump met with Mr. Rybolovlev during the campaign or any other time," said the official, who requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

The official continued: "No one was even aware of the plane until receiving a similar email about this yesterday. For a press corps so obsessed with evidence, proof and feigning a general disgust at even the hint of conspiracy, this is pretty rich."

The speculation about possible preelection encounters between Trump and Rybolovlev had also been fueled by the fact that it wouldn't have been their first. Rybolovlev, a multibillionaire who was an early investor in one of the world's most lucrative fertilizer companies, bought a Palm Beach property from Trump for $95 million in 2008, two years after Trump had put it on the market for $125 million (after purchasing it for $41 million in 2004.)

Rybolovlev has never lived in the mansion and has since torn it down, but Chernitsyn said "there is every prospect that this investment will turn out to be profitable." 

Both Rybolovlev and Trump have insisted that they never met at any point during the historic transaction.

"The Rybolovlev family trust did acquire a property in Palm Beach from Mr Trump back in 2008, below the asking price, as an investment and following a process of negotiation," Chernitsyn said. "Throughout the process of the trust's purchase, Mr Rybolovlev had no personal contact with Mr Trump."

The adviser sent a later statement to Business Insider commenting on Rybolevlev's ties to Cyprus Bank, which was majority-owned by Wilbur Ross until this year. Ross, who was recently confirmed as Secretary of Commerce, bought out the Cypriot bank in 2014 from Russian oligarchs who had been accused of using it to move their money to offshore accounts.

"Following the 2013 bail in at Bank of Cyprus, Mr Rybolovlev's previous shareholding in the bank was diluted to a very low level," Chernitsyn said. "He has never met Wilbur Ross."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This animated map shows how religion spread across the world

Last week, the web was abuzz with the news that billionaire Russian oligarch Dmitry Ryoblovlev had given his 22-year-old daughter the gift to end all gifts--an $88 million apartment at 15 Central Park West that had previously belonged to ex-Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill.

Now, rumor has it that the penthouse isn't the only real estate Ryoblovlev bought at the storied building last week.

The New York Observer reports that he also paid $8.4 million for a two-bedroom apartment on the building's third floor, apparently for use by daughter Ekaterina's security guards.

Ryoblovlev flatly denies he was involved in the purchase, with a spokesperson telling the Observer:

Neither Dmitry Rybolovlev, nor his daughter Ekaterina Rybolovleva, nor any companies connected to them have purchased apartment 3F at 15 Central Park West, New York City. The reports suggesting that they have are completely inaccurate. There have never been any plans or even any discussions about purchasing this apartment.

But the Observer says it has sources who insist the apartment belongs to Rybolovlev.

In any case, the photos of the place are pretty impressive--and satisfy a small piece of the craving we had for a look inside Weill's old apartment, which sold without ever producing listing photos.

The apartment is 1,987 square feet

It has North, South, and West exposures and a long hallway

It was sold by a healthcare exec who bought it in 2008 for $4.99 million

Dmitry Rybolovlev, the Russian potash magnate who has recently been making all sorts of headlines in the real estate world, owns two of the most expensive homes in the United States.

Earlier this year, he purchased an $88 million penthouse at 15 Central Park West for his daughter, who is finishing a degree at Harvard Extension School.

And several years ago he paid what was then a record-breaking $95 million for Donald Trump's six-acre estate in Palm Beach, a huge sticker price considering Trump paid just $41.35 million for the property at auction, and that Palm Beach County appraised it for $56.1 million last year.

But both properties are completely unused, according to The New York Times' Alexei Barrionuevo.

They are at the center of a complicated divorce proceeding between Rybolovlev and his estranged wife, which is currently pending in Switzerland.

The Florida home was damaged after the air conditioning system failed, and is slated to be torn down, but has not been touched due to the ongoing court case, Barrionuevo writes.

And the Upper West Side penthouse currently "stands empty with nary a lamp in it," Rybolovlev's lawyer told Barrionuevo.

Now meet the big shots who live at 15 Central Park West >

Join the conversation about this story »

Last year when Formula One heiress Petra Ecclestone paid $85 million for the Spelling mansion in Holmby Hills, it was one of the most expensive real estate transactions in recent memory.

Impressively, she pulled off the deal after just two days of negotiating and paid a $65 million discount off Candy Spelling's initial asking price of $150 million.

But it seems that Ecclestone has a certain Russian oligarch to thank for making her deal so sweet.

According to Alexei Barrionuevo of The New York Times, Dmitry Rybolovlev, the billionaire who bought his daughter an $88 million apartment on Central Park West, had negotiated to by the Spelling mansion several months earlier.

Writes Barrionuevo:

One interesting twist in the script is that the deal to buy the Manor from Ms. Spelling, the widow of the producer Aaron Spelling, would most likely not have been possible — especially in the mere 48 hours it took to finalize — without another prospective buyer’s negotiation on the home with Ms. Spelling nine months earlier.

In late 2010 Dmitry Rybolovlev, the Russian potash fertilizer billionaire, quietly made a visit to Los Angeles with his eldest daughter, Ekaterina. He made offers on at least two of the most famous mansions in Beverly Hills and Holmby Hills, including the Spelling manor, before deciding not to buy a home on the West Coast, at least for now, according to people familiar with their deliberations who declined to be named for confidentiality reasons.

While Rybolovlev left the West Coast without buying any real estate, he appears to have primed Spelling for the sale to Ecclestone.

Barrionuevo continues:

It seems that Ms. Spelling was eager to sell for that price because Mr. Rybolovlev had already negotiated with her down to that number in 2010, said one person familiar with the discussions.

Now take a tour of Petra Ecclestone's new home >

Join the conversation about this story »

Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev is the largest shareholder in the Bank of Cyprus, with a 9.9% stake in the company.

He may have slept better this weekend when European officials announced that Cypriot banks would get a much-needed bailout, but on the condition that they accept a one-time tax on all deposits.

A lot of those deposits are held by Russian citizens, or Russians who've become Cypriot citizens.

But of course, very few of them are as fabulously wealthy with as much at stake as Rybolovlev, who caught Wall Street's attention last year when he bought ex-Citi CEO Sandy Weill's $88 million penthouse apartment for his 23 year-old daughter, Ekaterina.

According to Forbes, Rybolovlev is the 119th richest man in the world. He started out his career as a doctor, but abandoned that in 1990 to start Uralkali, a fertilizer company.

In 1996 he was accused (and acquitted) of plotting to kill a business partner and spent 11 months in jail— a slight rough patch. He sold his stake Uralkali in 2010 for $6.5 billion, but still has an investment fund comprised mostly of industrial holdings.

Rybolovlev is also holding a $300 million for a Monaco penthouse called La Belle Epoque, a Hawaiian villa he bought from Will Smith for $20 million, and Donald Trump's Palm Beach mansion, Maison de L'Amitie, which he bought for $95 million in 2008.

In 2011 he and other investors bought two-thirds of the Monaco football club, AS Moncao. He also owns a yacht called 'My Anna' worth $111 million.

Of course, with more money, as we know, there can also be more problems. In 2008 Rybolovlev's wife filed for one of the most expensive divorces in history.

Elena Rybolovleva also sued her husband in a New York Court and when he bought Weill's apartment, according to Bloomberg.

She alleged that her husband fraudulently transferred property he got during their marriage to buy the $88 billion penthouse in violation of a Swiss divorce Court order. She is also suing him for the Trump mansion in Florida.

At the same time, there have been conflicting reports for months about whether or not Cyprus and Russia have been working on a way for Rybolovleva, and other shareholders in the Bank of Cyprus, to increase their holdings and secure a $6 billion Russian loan for Cyprus in the process.

Rybolovleva would have to get special permission from the Cypriot Central Bank to increase his stake above 9.9%.

The Russian Finance Ministry at first denied these reports (which started getting attention in July of last year).

However, by the end of January 2013, Archbishop Chrysostomos II, the head of the Orthodox Church in Cyprus, was openly asking his Russian counterpart to convince Vladimir Putin to give Cyprus another loan — this one for $3.4 billion, says Bloomberg.

Maybe now Rybolovleva will get on board with the message, if he hasn't already. At Davos Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said that the country would be on board to help out  “when our European partners also give something.”

Looks like the Europeans figured out how to take something instead.

Join the conversation about this story »

Russian fertilizer tycoon Dmitry Rybolovlev plans to level the $95 million Palm Beach property he bought from Donald Trump in 2008 because of mold problems, Gossip Extra reported.

The sale of the 33,000-square-foot property, dubbed Maison de L’Amitie, was the highest ever for a single-family home, netting Trump a more than $50 million profit, according to the site.

Mold has become a “Wal-Mart-size problem,” Gossip Extra wrote.

“I don’t care about the house,” Trump told Gossip Extra. “I bought it for $41 million, put in $3 worth of paint and gave it a good cleaning — and I sold it for the highest price ever for a single family home. I don’t know what he wants to do with it, and I couldn’t care less,” he said.

Rybolovlev, the billionaire owner of the A.S. Monaco Football Club, could chop up the 6.26-acre property, which includes a 475-foot-long beach, into as many as a dozen beachfront lots, the site said, citing an unnamed source. [Gossip Extra]

More from The Real Deal:

1. South Beach Setai $8.6M condo sale sets record
2. Morgans fighting bad deal it made in recession
3. High-end home sales smash records as South Florida market catches fire

SEE ALSO: Meet The Residents Of 'Billionaire Lane' In The Hamptons

Join the conversation about this story »

We learned earlier this year that Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev bought Will Smith's $20 million Hawaiian mansion back in 2011.

Now Rybolovlev's soon-to-be ex-wife Elena Rybolovleva is suing him over the property, claiming that the fertilizer billionaire bought it to protect money that she could potentially win in the pair's ongoing Swiss divorce case, according to The Daily News.

This is not Rybolovleva's first lawsuit against her husband. She has also sued Rybolovlev over an $88 million NYC penthouse he bought, purportedly for his daughter, as well as Donald Trump's $95 million Palm Beach mansion, also purchased with their daughters' trust.

The Daily News reports that the trust in question has also bought a $300 million Monaco penthouse, players for Rybolovlev's Monaco soccer team, and two Greek islands for $156 million.

Dmitry Rybolovlev and his lawyers insist the purchases are legal since his children's trust was set up prior to the 2008 divorce filing. He defends the subsequent purchases, arguing that they were to secure the future of his two daughters, Ekaterina and Anna.

Rybolovleva's lawyer, David Newman of Day Pitney, told the New York Daily News that Rybolovlev "has been spending money like a drunken sailor." Newman says the real estate purchases violate the Swiss Supreme Court order that froze Rybolovlev's assets in an attempt to keep him from spending the billions he made during the marriage.

"The Swiss order is limited to the jurisdiction of the Swiss courts,” and does not apply globally, said Rybolovlev spokesman Sergey Chernitsyn.

Tetiana Bersheda, Mr Rybolovlev’s lawyer, said, “Sadly, now a divorce between the husband and the wife has turned into a war between the mother and her children. It is unfortunate that the children have become the target of their mother in her divorce proceedings.”

Currently worth $9.1 billion and number 119 on Forbes' list of billionaires, the Russian tycoon is no stranger to controversy. In 1996 he was accused (and later acquitted) of plotting to kill a business partner, and spent 11 months in jail.

He sold his stake Uralkali, a fertilizer company he started in 1990, in 2010 for $6.5 billion.

Rybolovlev and his wife have been battling in Swiss courts since 2008 — both show no sign of slowing down.

SEE ALSO: The Most Expensive Home You Can Buy In Every State

Join the conversation about this story »

When Donald Trump sold his sprawling Palm Beach, Fla., mansion for a whopping $95 million five years ago, the true identity of the buyer was a mystery.

That is no longer the case, as Russian billionaire Dmitri Rybolovlev has finally acknowledged his involvement in the purchase of the 515 North County Road home.

Rybolovlev told lawyers during a London deposition last month that he invested an undisclosed amount in the 2008 transaction, Palm Beach Post reported.

The billionaire said he continues to pay property taxes and cover maintenance costs at the mansion but denied that he is the true owner.

Attorneys for Rybolovlev’s estranged wife, Elena, pressed him for details during the deposition. Elena has sued Rybolovlev in Palm Beach Circuit Court in an attempt to receive half of the mansion’s value through a divorce.

Rybolovlev amassed his wealth through the potash fertilizer industry. The 33,000-square-foot oceanfront mansion used to be known in the town as the Gosman estate. [Palm Beach Post] — Eric Kalis

Join the conversation about this story »

GENEVA (AP) — A Swiss court has ordered a Russian billionaire to pay more than $4.5 billion to his ex-wife in what could become the biggest divorce settlement in history.

In papers delivered Monday to both parties, the Geneva Tribunal of First Instance said Dmitry Rybolovlev, an owner of the French soccer club AS Monaco, must pay 4,020,555,987.80 Swiss francs ($4,509,375,184.80) to ex-wife Elena Rybolovleva of Geneva. Both are aged 47.

The judgment also granted his ex-wife property worth 130.5 million francs ($146 million) in property in Gstaad, Switzerland, where the couple owned two swanky chalets. It awarded his ex-wife two other pieces of real estate in the ultra-wealthy area of Geneva known as Cologny, where the couple once lived together, but listed no value for either address. And it confirmed her custody of their 13-year-old daughter, Anna. The couple also has an adult daughter, Ekaterina.

Her lawyer Marc Bonnant called it "the most expensive divorce in history," an unheard-of amount for Switzerland and for Russian oligarchs.

But Rybolovlev's lawyer said that the judgment's cash order was likely to be whittled down in coming appeals.

"There will definitely be a new appellate review and therefore this judgment is not final given the existence of two levels of appeal in Switzerland," said Tetiana Bersheda.

A separate statement by Bonnant and two other lawyers in the case, Corinne Corminboeuf Harari and Caroline Schumacher, called the record judgment "a complete victory" for her and said that under Swiss law she was entitled to half the fortune he made during their marriage. Most of that fortune was transferred to Cyprus-based trusts in 2005.

The three lawyers said Monday's ruling demonstrated that "no one — not even a Russian tycoon who put his fabulous fortune into legal structures such as trusts and offshore companies — is above the law."

But Rybolovlev's lawyer suggested the opposite, praising the judgment for "confirming both the validity of the trusts created by Mr. Rybolovlev and the validity of the asset transfer to them that occurred long before his wife initiated divorce proceedings."

His ex-wife had demanded $6 billion from the man known as the "fertilizer king," whose fortune from potash mining once made him the world's 79th richest person. He is now ranked 147th on the Forbes list of billionaires, with an estimated fortune of $8.8 billion.

The couple met as university students in Perm, Russia, and married there in 1987. Divorce proceedings began in 2008, when Forbes estimated his worth at $12.8 billion.

A Geneva court had provisionally frozen Rybolovlev's assets in Switzerland and abroad, but it may prove difficult for Rybolovleva to obtain the money because Switzerland has no legal aid treaty with Cyprus.

In the United States, Rybolovlev and his daughter Ekaterina used trusts to acquire some of the priciest real estate in the country, including a penthouse apartment at Central Park West in New York and a mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.

SEE ALSO: The 17 Most Expensive Divorces Ever

Join the conversation about this story »

Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev "categorically" denied through his adviser on Friday that he had ever met President Donald Trump, amid questions over why Rybolovlev had flown into cities where Trump was campaigning before the November election.

"A number of theories have been circulating about the supposed relationship between Dmitry Rybolovlev and President Donald Trump. None of these theories has any foundation in fact," Rybolovlev's adviser, Sergey Chernitsyn, said in a statement provided to Business Insider.

It was the first time Rybolovlev acknowledged that he was on his jet when it landed in Charlotte, North Carolina, minutes before Trump's plane landed and parked nearby. 

Rybolovlev's adviser insisted, however, that the billionaire "never met Mr. Trump personally and has no connection whatsoever to Mr Trump or his team of advisers," Chernitsyn added.

The response was the most expansive — and first official — statement Rybolovlev has given since photos began circulating on social media in November of his Airbus A319, dubbed M-KATE.

Theories began circulating, too, about why his jet — which spends most of its time flying between major European cities like London, Berlin, and Zurich, with sporadic trips to Los Angeles, Miami, and the Caribbean, according to flight records — flew to Las Vegas, Nevada, and Charlotte, North Carolina, the same days Trump did.

The timing raised questions about whether Rybolovlev met with Trump while their planes were parked at the same time in Las Vegas in late October and then in Charlotte, North Carolina, in early November.

"Particular attention has been focused on a trip made by Mr Rybolovlev to North Carolina," Chernitsyn said. "He was in North Carolina for a business meeting and we can state categorically that he did not have any contact with Mr Trump or any of his advisers at the time he was there.”

Chernitsyn did not mention Rybolovlev's presence in Las Vegas at the same time as Trump, but said that "Mr. Rybolovlev travels frequently to many different destinations, including destinations across the US," Chernitsyn continued. "If Mr Rybolovlev was physically in the same place as Mr Trump at any time, this was pure coincidence."

A White House official called the speculation "ridiculous" and characterized it as akin to a "conspiracy" in an email to Business Insider earlier this week.

"No member of the Trump campaign or Mr. Trump met with Mr. Rybolovlev during the campaign or any other time," said the official, who requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

The official continued: "No one was even aware of the plane until receiving a similar email about this yesterday. For a press corps so obsessed with evidence, proof and feigning a general disgust at even the hint of conspiracy, this is pretty rich."

The speculation about possible preelection encounters between Trump and Rybolovlev had also been fueled by the fact that it wouldn't have been their first. Rybolovlev, a multibillionaire who was an early investor in one of the world's most lucrative fertilizer companies, bought a Palm Beach property from Trump for $95 million in 2008, two years after Trump had put it on the market for $125 million (after purchasing it for $41 million in 2004.)

Rybolovlev has never lived in the mansion and has since torn it down, but Chernitsyn said "there is every prospect that this investment will turn out to be profitable." 

Both Rybolovlev and Trump have insisted that they never met at any point during the historic transaction.

"The Rybolovlev family trust did acquire a property in Palm Beach from Mr Trump back in 2008, below the asking price, as an investment and following a process of negotiation," Chernitsyn said. "Throughout the process of the trust's purchase, Mr Rybolovlev had no personal contact with Mr Trump."

The adviser sent a later statement to Business Insider commenting on Rybolevlev's ties to Cyprus Bank, which was majority-owned by Wilbur Ross until this year. Ross, who was recently confirmed as Secretary of Commerce, bought out the Cypriot bank in 2014 from Russian oligarchs who had been accused of using it to move their money to offshore accounts.

"Following the 2013 bail in at Bank of Cyprus, Mr Rybolovlev's previous shareholding in the bank was diluted to a very low level," Chernitsyn said. "He has never met Wilbur Ross."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Meet the woman behind Trump's $20 million merch empire