(Bloomberg) -- The US is trying to seize a luxury apartment in Manhattan allegedly bought with money looted from the government of the Republic of Congo for the daughter of that country’s longtime President Denis Sassou Nguesso, according to court papers made public in New York Monday.

Federal prosecutors claim the apartment, on the 32nd floor of the Trump International Hotel and Tower, near the southwest corner of Central Park, was bought in 2014 for $7.1 million and was traced to “an international conspiracy to launder funds” stolen from the Congo government. 

In court papers, US prosecutors detail a complex web of banks, individuals and shell companies allegedly used to launder hundreds of millions of dollars from the African nation. The apartment is believed to have been unoccupied since it was purchased 10 years ago, the government said.

A spokesperson for the Republic of Congo’s president’s office declined to comment on the US forfeiture suit.

The two-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath corner apartment comes with spectacular views of the city and Hudson River. The apartment was bought for Sassou Nguesso’s daughter, Claudia Lemboumba Sassou Nguesso, who has served at times as her father’s head of communications and as a member of Congo’s parliament, according to the US complaint seeking forfeiture.

Congo ranked 158th out of 180 countries in 2023 in a public corruption study by Transparency International, which tracks the issue.

--With assistance from Elie Smith.

(Updates with outreach to president’s office in fourth paragraph. An earlier version of the story corrected the president’s title in the headline.)

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