The first French and European bank has been indicted for “laundering of corruption and embezzlement of public funds” in the Gabonese section of the “ill-gotten gains” case, Agence France-Presse learned on Thursday, May 20. sources close to the case and judicial. The investigation into the heritage in France of the family of the late Gabonese President Omar Bongo has brought to light tens of millions of euros suspected of the Bongo family having passed through his accounts.
This indictment was pronounced by an investigating judge from the financial center of the Paris Court in charge of the so-called “ill-gotten property” investigation, which also relates to the patrimony of the family of Denis Sassou Nguesso, President of the Congo . According to investigations, the leading French bank “Failed in his due diligence obligations by not making a suspicious transaction report” between 2002 and 2009 on the “Atypical operation of the account [de la société] Atelier 74 and its almost exclusive relationship ” with Omar Bongo, concludes a note in September 2020 from the Central Office for the Repression of Major Financial Crime (OCRGDF). Contacted, the bank did not react immediately.
52 million euros
Omar Bongo – President of Gabon from 1967 until his death in 2009, and succeeded by his son Ali – was considered at the time as a “Politically exposed person” at the risk of money laundering. The Bongo clan acquired twelve properties in Paris and Nice “For an amount of nearly 32 million euros over a very long period” from the 1990s, according to investigators.
To make these acquisitions, cash was paid by men of the Head of State’s confidence to the BGFI bank in Libreville on the account of the Gabonese subsidiary of the company Atelier 74. Then the sums were transferred to the account of the parent company. at BNP Paribas. According to a 2017 investigation report, already implicating the BNP, 52 million euros thus passed between 1997 and 2009 between Atelier 74 and its subsidiary. The company, specializing in interior decoration, was responsible for finding real estate and renovating them for several million euros.
“Leading” role
“Systematic use of BNP Paribas bank checks” to pay for these acquisitions “Should have alerted” the banking group, which played a role “Preponderant” in this money laundering system, underline the investigators.
“This is a historic first in this file”, welcomed William Bourdon, lawyer for Transparency International, welcoming a decision “Extremely solid, up to the judge’s investigations” Dominique Blanc. “This indictment reminds us that there is no major operation of laundering and embezzlement of public money without great engineers of figures and law”, two notaries and a lawyer having already been prosecuted in this case, added Mr.e Bumblebee.
In this investigation, which began in 2010 following a complaint from Transparency, at least thirteen people are indicted, including five members of the Nguesso family, the former lawyer of Omar Bongo, and French intermediaries. Members of the Bongo family were interviewed, but none of them has been prosecuted to this day.