"The figure that was announced in the amount of USD 481 million, in my opinion, is only a part, and we are talking about paintings worth a billion USD," - Giorgi Bachiashvili told TV-program "Analytics".
On Thursday, it became known that paintings worth USD 481 million were brought into Georgia in January 2025. In this regard, Giorgi Bachiashvili, the former CEO of Bidzina Ivanishvili's co-investment fund, is convinced that this is only a reduced amount and that in reality, Ivanishvili brought a collection of works of art worth more than USD 1 billion to Georgia.
According to Giorgi Bachiashvili, the total VAT, property, and other taxes on paintings of this value reach USD 300-400 million, which Ivanishvili did not pay because the parliament received a tax benefit tailored to him in the form of the so-called offshore law.
In addition, according to Giorgi Bachiashvili, the paintings were imported about two years ago and until now they had been stored in the country under the temporary import procedure, but in January 2025, the temporary import was replaced by the import procedure, and the goods were recorded as imported.
"I know that he imported paintings and these are paintings that were imported earlier. These were imported two or two and a half years ago, as far as I know. This happened under the temporary import regime so VAT was not paid. Ivanishvili worked with a similar scheme before, and now they have been imported and declared as direct imports, not temporary imports. Accordingly, this is already a “scam” that he has these paintings in the country and has not paid taxes", - Bachaiashvilis aid.
