The appearance of Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis in the “Pandora Papers” – a collaborative investigation into the offshore industry conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) – had already helped him lose the parliamentary elections, and his post, in October 2021.
But the Czech billionaire, head of government from 2017 to 2021, could also have legal problems in France. The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office has opened a preliminary investigation into the laundering of tax evasion, according to information from the World. The procedure, opened in February 2022 and entrusted to the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Crimes, concerns the conditions for the acquisition by Mr. Babis of real estate in Mougins (Alpes-Maritimes), by the through a cascade of offshore companies.
The arrangement put in place by the businessman in September 2009 is particularly complex. The two houses, including a villa of more than 500 square meters on a 3 hectare plot, were purchased by a Monegasque company, itself owned by an offshore structure in the United States. Price of the real estate transaction: 14 million euros.
British Virgin Islands, United States, Monaco
The deed of sale viewed by The world specifies that this amount was “paid in cash”. Documents from the “Pandora Papers” show, however, that the American company of Andrej Babis had recourse to a loan of 15 million euros from an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands to finance the purchase of the houses in Mougins. A loan of which there is no trace in official French documents.
The financial investigators will have to try to understand the purpose of this arrangement and to discover why Mr. Babis is both the owner of the lending company and the borrowing structure of the 15 million euros. The use of offshore companies in tax havens and a secret loan could amount to money laundering aimed at hiding the origin of the money, unknown to date.
The former Czech Prime Minister had gradually transferred in 2016 and 2018 the real estate of Mougins to a structure which he publicly owns, again using a surprising technique, consisting in selling the shares of the American and Monegasque companies to his wife, Monika Babisova, who transferred them back the same day to her husband’s holding company.
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