Italy traces stolen Bond girl fortune to Tuscan vineyards and villas

Swiss actress Ursula Andres on the set of 'Casino Royale'. (Keystone/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

MILAN — Italian authorities have impounded 20 million euros (US$23 million) worth of property, artworks and financial assets in and around Florence that were allegedly purchased with money stolen from original Bond girl Ursula Andress, Italy’s financial police said in a statement on Thursday.

The seizures were the result of an investigation launched after Andress reported to Swiss authorities that she had been swindled out of assets by financial advisers.

The 90-year-old former Bond girl told Swiss newspaper Blick in January that she had been defrauded out of 18 million Swiss francs, approximately 20 million euros, by her longtime financial adviser over an eight-year period. The newspaper said the adviser had died in the meantime.

“I am still in shock,’’ Andress was quoted as saying. “I was deliberately chosen as a victim. For eight years, I was courted and wooed. They lied to me shamelessly and exploited my goodwill in a perfidious, indeed criminal, way in order to take everything from me. They took advantage of my age.”

The stolen funds were invested in foreign companies, used to buy assets and then channeled through transactions designed to conceal their source, Italian authorities said.

They were traced to the purchase of 11 real estate properties, 14 plots of land cultivated as vineyards and olive groves, along with artworks and financial assets in Florence and the neighbouring Tuscan countryside.

Authorities did not say if any arrests were made.

Swiss-born Andress is best known as the first Bond girl, Honey Ryder, in 1962’s “Dr. No,” which featured her memorable entrance emerging from the sea in a white bikini. She went on to work with Elvis Presley in “Fun in Acapulco” and Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin in “Four for Texas.” She later transitioned to a European cinema and television career, before retiring in the early 2000s.

Colleen Barry, The Associated Press