The most famous hairdresser in France has plenty to do with white hair. Franck Provost was indicted on Tuesday for “misuse of corporate assets” and “Organized gang money laundering of aggravated tax fraud”, indicates this Thursday the parquet floor of Nanterre in a press release. The founder of the Provalliance group, 201st fortune in France in 2021 according to Challenges, has since been placed under judicial supervision “With a deposit set at several hundred thousand euros”.
According to the prosecution, “Several reports” have been “Transmitted by the tax authorities in 2017 concerning the use of fraudulent cash register software to divert cash receipts from a network of hairdressing salons”. The businessman, who has just celebrated his 75th birthday at the head of an empire of several thousand salons (Franck Provost, Jean-Louis David, Saint-Algue …) spread over dozens of countries, is also indicted for “Provision of equipment and programs for committing offenses and breaches of automated data processing systems”.
The group’s financial director already indicted in the spring
Clearly, the group is accused of having provided its franchisees with software allowing them to do double accounting … and to make part of their turnover disappear in the eyes of the tax authorities. What “to do black”, as they say. A preliminary investigation was opened and entrusted to the National Brigade for the Repression of Fiscal Crime of the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Fiscal Offenses (OCLCIFF), relating to facts spanning twenty years, from 2001 to 2021.
On April 9, an opening of judicial information had already given rise to the indictment of the administrative and financial director of the group. It related to similar offenses: “Abuse of corporate assets and complicity, breach of trust, tax evasion and complicity, organized money laundering of aggravated tax fraud, illegal exercise of the profession of accountant, possession, offer, provision of equipment and programs to commit offenses and breaches of automated data processing systems ”. It remains to be seen whether Franck Provost was in cahoots.