You might think he’s a guy walking his dog, but he’s a king of scams on the loose. In the middle of bikinis and racket players, in the scent of grilled eggplant and sunscreen, Cyril Astruc walks the beach of Herzliya (north of Tel-Aviv, Israel), slender figure, flowered shirt, tanned skin and dark glasses, Malinois at the end off the leash, nineteen years in prison and three international arrest warrants over his head. If he set foot in France, this man born in France fifty years ago would be “locked up” instantly. But for now, he’s got both in the Israeli sand, and he’s walking his dog.
The character is courteous, approachable, but declines our interview request – “You understand that, in my situation, discretion is my best ally” – and confides, before leaving, that the chances of seeing him return to France of his own free will are quite slim: “I have nothing against the French state, I have nothing against French justice, it’s just complicated to go to be nineteen [de prison], I think you understand. Nineteen years is still a long time. At that price, I could have committed murder. »
Cyril Astruc didn’t kill anyone; French justice is content to reproach him for a major role in the “swindle of the century”: the carbon VAT fraud which, in a few months of 2008 and 2009, allowed a handful of particularly resourceful carambouilleurs to offload the Public Treasury of 1.6 billion euros. The scheme consisted of setting up fictitious companies to buy, tax-free and abroad, carbon quotas, or rights to pollute, then reselling them to a French company at a price including VAT, without paying it back. in the state. Cyril Astruc was tried in two parts of this scam, for an amount of embezzled VAT of 170 million euros. He took ten years in one, six in the other – and three years in a third VAT fraud case, on mobile phones this time – without appearing at his trials.
Settled in Israel since the 2000s, he had indeed traveled to France in 2014 when summoned by an examining magistrate, with the intention of explaining himself. Placed in pre-trial detention despite his explanations, released on bail – 4 million euros – he had attended the first day of his first trial, in May 2017, before slipping away. Since then, he has not left Herzliya and his villa with swimming pool, tennis court, guardian at the entrance, cinema in the basement and interior elevator.
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