Former minister Caroline Cayeux has been targeted since December 5 by a preliminary investigation after a report from the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life (HATVP) on her assets, the Paris prosecutor’s office told AFP on Wednesday. confirming information from Le Monde.
The investigation has been open since December 5 for incomplete or misleading declaration of assets to the HATVP and laundering of tax evasion, and has been entrusted to the Brigade for the repression of economic crime (BRDE), said the public prosecutor.
The HATVP had indicated at the end of November that it had taken legal action, suspecting a misleading valuation of the assets of the former Minister Delegate for Territorial Communities, in particular concerning a Parisian apartment of 210 m2, and tax evasion.
The High Authority had mentioned in a press release significant reductions in the value of his property, his main residence in Paris and a house located in Ille-et-Vilaine, of around half the overall value of these two properties. She could not ignore the fair value, had indicated the HATVP.
Following the revelations on the subject, Mrs. Cayeux had resigned from her post of Minister for Territorial Communities so as not to interfere with the action of the government.
She had then challenged the assessment of the HATVP and claimed to have made an amending declaration of her assets taking into account the observations of the High Authority, which had alerted her on the occasion of her declaration of assets as mayor of Beauvais in 2021.
Why such sudden media coverage (…) even though the investigation has been underway for several months without any new element?, asked Me Myriam Mayel, one of Mrs. Cayeux’s lawyers.
The qualification referred to as money laundering by investment transaction or concealment of a hypothetical tax evasion is perfectly aberrant, Ms. Cayeux having never hidden the least of her assets, added her other lawyer, Me Edouard de Lamaze.
Such amalgamations as well as incessant media communication are totally excessive and do not fail to surprise for a simple property valuation case, believe the two lawyers.
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