In the case of a real estate fraud of nearly 1 billion euros, the company Apollonia and thirteen defendants sent to justice

A scam involving nearly 1 billion euros, seven hundred real estate investors cheated and twenty-six banks as civil parties: fourteen years after the first complaints, the Apollonia case should finally be tried in the spring of 2023 in Marseille. According to our information, the investigating judge Valéry Muller issued, on Wednesday May 25, an order referring the Apollonia company and thirteen defendants to the criminal court, in particular for “organized gang scam”, “forgery” and “money laundering”. It thus puts an end to an interminable investigation, full of twists and turns, since lending organizations and banks had for a time been indicted for complicity before joining the cohort of civil parties.

In the early 2000s, the company Apollonia, both real estate agent and financial adviser, experienced a boom that made the “one” of economic publications. The success of this company based in Aix-en-Provence, created by Moussa-Jean Badache, a former merchant, and his wife, Viviane Badache, a beautician, is explained by the “turnkey product” offered to a well-to-do clientele, mainly from the medical community and concerned with building up a property portfolio for retirement.

By cold calling, Apollonia and its sales representatives assure doctors, surgeons, dentists, absorbed in the exercise of their activity, that they can achieve this without a purse, dangling a self-financing of real estate acquisitions and their expenses thanks to the rents, to very advantageous tax provisions and to reimbursement of VAT on the condition of obtaining the status of professional furnished rental company (LMP). Hundreds of investors accept, 690 are now civil parties, faced with over-indebtedness ranging from 800,000 euros to 4 million euros.

Opacity and credit stacking

The promised self-financing turns out to be a mirage. However, everything worked well for the first five years thanks to the reimbursement of VAT, which Judge Muller described as “makeshift bandage”, and tax benefits. It is during this state of grace that Apollonia will benefit from effective word-of-mouth in hospitals and medical practices. Among the first plaintiffs grouped within Asdevilm – association of victims of Apollonia – a medical biologist had discovered, after a few years, that he was indebted to seven banks to the tune of 3 million euros. To the investigators, he recounted the meeting in flashy style with Moussa-Jean Badache, in “a big desk with Montblanc pens everywhere”.

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