I became a spy in 2007. I was 28 years old, I had gone to England to learn the language, when a friend offered me to go and work in Jersey in finance. At the time, there were no books or documentaries on offshore finance, it was an extremely secret environment. I joined the biggest law firm on the island, Mourant, as a fund administrator. After a few weeks, I volunteered at the DGSE. I worked with them for five years, until 2012, in the greatest secrecy.
It was not the first time that I denounced a financial fraud, I had already rubbed shoulders with it when I was 22, in Tahiti. I was then working for a small pearl farm 50% owned by my girlfriend’s father and I quickly realized that something was wrong: there was a big difference in terms of financial flows between what my father and the Polynesian shareholder, owner of the farm. The latter did not have access to part of the profit. I dreamed of adventure, I had fallen into postcolonialism, and that shocked me. I informed the Polynesian shareholder. The first reaction of the person to whom the fraud is revealed consists in considering that it is almost the fault of the messenger.
The anger lasted a few days, then the Polynesian shareholder came back to see me. He wanted to know how to act. I advised him legally, taking advantage of my law studies, so that he put an end to the partnership with his partner. My stepfather called me names. But I’ve earned a reputation as a loyal guy in the pearl farming world. I left Polynesia after this episode and never went back there, but I keep very good friends there, with whom I am still in contact.
Data theft
In Jersey, I transmitted all sorts of information to intelligence: lists of our clients’ IT managers, e-mail addresses of managers, identifiers, types of software used in the various companies, financial and accounting information on deals, names and information on customers using the tax haven, identification of profiles of other French people likely to become, in turn, spies on the island.
“I had the impression that the information I provided did not benefit the employees, but only the most powerful”
I happened to be afraid. Once, after communicating a database, the tax services of several European countries carried out an almost simultaneous raid on the headquarters of most of our clients. A general uproar shook the walls of Mourant: management suspected the presence of a mole, and I was on the list of suspects. I was summoned by my superiors. They asked me what I thought of finance, I recited the catechism they wanted to hear. It saved me.
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