A brazen bombing in Monaco that wounded three people including a Ukrainian-born millionaire — has triggered an international manhunt for a tattooed Ukrainian woman, after German police searched her rented flat near Frankfurt.
The suspect has been identified as 39-year-old Anastasiia Berezovska. Monaco is seeking her on suspicion of attempted murder, placing an explosive device on a public road with criminal intent, and criminal conspiracy linked to Monday’s blast, according to an Interpol Red Notice.
German law enforcement said officers raided her apartment in the Frankfurt area on Thursday.
“The woman being sought is currently on the run,” they said, adding they had secured evidence and would hand it over to the Monaco authorities.
Prince Albert II described the attack as a “heinous crime”
Monaco deputy public prosecutor Morgan Raymond told reporters investigators believe the suspect’s last known residence was in Germany.
Mr Raymond said she escaped in a rental car, travelling through France and then Italy.
He said the timeline and available information indicate the suspect “may not have acted alone”, and confirmed the person sought is “a woman posing as a man”.
The attack has rattled Monaco, an ultra-secure enclave near Nice in southern France that draws the world’s wealthiest residents and visitors. Prince Albert II has condemned the bombing as a “heinous crime”.
Tattoo on right arm
Monaco authorities have not publicly confirmed the victims’ names. Several sources, however, said the apparent target was 58-year-old Vadym Yermolaiev, a wealthy businessman born in Ukraine who holds Cypriot nationality, along with his partner and his 13-year-old son.
On Monday evening, an individual left a package in the entrance hall of a small apartment building close to the French border.
Not long after, the device exploded in the hall at the moment three residents — a couple and a child — were entering.
The suspect, seen in images displayed by Monaco’s Public Safety director Eric Arella above, was initially believed to be a man
CCTV footage showed the suspect wearing a black fisherman’s hat, and investigators initially believed the person was male.
Mr Raymond said that after investigators re-examined surveillance footage and took testimony from someone who encountered the suspect, attention shifted to a woman believed to have carried out multiple reconnaissance trips in the days leading up to the explosion.
Interpol released two photographs showing the suspected woman, who has dark, shoulder-length hair.
The Red Notice states she has a tattoo on her right arm that “possibly” shows a snake, and that she speaks German.
Convicted of fraud
The two adults suffered especially serious injuries.
A source following the case initially said the man sustained severe burns and the woman was in critical condition, without giving further details.
A heavy police presence was deployed to the area on Monday
The child was taken to Lenval children’s hospital in Nice in non-critical condition. The two adults were transported to Nice University Hospital with their lives in danger.
By Wednesday, the man’s condition had improved and he was no longer described as critical, though the woman remained unstable.
Mr Yermolaiev, who has lived in Monaco since at least 2021, has been under Ukrainian sanctions since December 2023 over business activities in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia.
In 2021, the Ukrainian edition of Forbes estimated his wealth at $220 million, placing him 45th on the country’s rich list.
The explosive device went off just as three residents were entering
A source told AFP that in Dnipro — the industrial Ukrainian city where the construction magnate built his fortune — there would have been no shortage of people ready to gun him down.
The magnate’s son, Artur Yermolaiev, 35, is also believed to have amassed a long list of enemies.
Estonian authorities say he had been involved in phone scams since at least 2017.
Earlier this year, he was convicted of fraud in Estonia after pleading guilty to operating a bogus investment phone scheme out of Ukraine that allegedly took about €100 million through fraud between 2019 and 2022.
