The scenario is worthy of a film whose Dany Boon could have been the main actor, yet he is the sad reality. The 56-year-old comedian, comedy star Welcome to the Ch’tis, exported all over the world, would have been the victim of a well-established scam. As revealed The Irish Examiner, the companion of Laurence Arné would have lost more than 6 million euros in the case. Dany Boon would have met a certain Terry Birles – a false identity – presented as the descendant of a large Irish family.
The two men would have met after Dany Boon was offered the services of the famous Terry Birles to maintain his boat. The latter would then have pushed him to invest in the South Sea Merchant’s Mariners Ltd Partnership (SSMM), a company belonging to his family for many years. He also allegedly encouraged Dany Boon to plant funds in a scheme affiliated with the Central Bank of Ireland in exchange for 3.25% annual tax-free interest, according to Capital. In total, no less than 6.6 million euros have been invested by Dany Boon.
After having met a man painting a not very glorious portrait of Terry Birles of which he would also have been a victim, Dany Boon would then have understood that he had perhaps been had. He would have gotten to the bottom of it by asking for a refund of the funds invested before being refused. An investigation thus revealed that Dany Boon’s money would have ended up in accounts in Panama and South Korea, that the SSMM was only a “front company” that had never belonged to a wealthy family. Irish and that the famous Terry was actually at the controls of this vast monetary machination.
Dany Boon’s lawyers have launched legal proceedings. They would thus have obtained a freezing of the assets of Terry Birles, whose money given by Dany Boon would have been used to buy one of his houses. At present, the French filmmaker has still not recovered the sums invested.