Jean-Marie Le Pen’s assistant will be tried in Paris for tax fraud and money laundering while the legal fate of the founder of the FN in this case will be decided by the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office later, a judicial source said on Wednesday.
Grald Grin will appear on April 4 before the Paris criminal court for tax fraud and laundering of tax fraud, detailed a judicial source.
Jean-Marie Le Pen and his wife Jany Le Pen are also cited in this investigation, opened in 2015 and relating to a trust based in the British Virgin Islands, with Grald Grin as beneficiary.
This trust managed by Geneva (Switzerland) would contain 2.2 million euros, including 1.7 million in the form of gold bars and coins. The existence of this trust was revealed by Mediapart in 2015.
For reasons of competence, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) has relinquished matters to the Nanterre prosecutor’s office on the facts likely to be alleged against the Le Pen couple, the judicial source said.
This aspect will be the subject of a study in order to determine what the consequences will be, the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office told AFP.
Tracfin, the anti-money laundering unit of Bercy, and the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life (HATVP) had reported to the courts the possible existence of a bank account hidden abroad and belonging to the founder of the National Front (FN), now National Rally (RN).
The same suspicions appeared in the Panama Papers. Jean-Marie Le Pen, 95 years old today, then brushed aside these accusations.
The Montretout Saint-Cloud mansion (Haut-de-Seine), the Le Pen family home which also houses the patriarch’s offices, was searched in November 2015 in this affair.
According to Libration, this trust, named Balerton Marketing LTD and registered in 2000, first belonged to Georges Paschos, brother of Jany Le Pen, until his death in 2008. It was then his son, Achille Paschos, who was in charge. the beneficiary, then Grald Grin from 2014.
Jean-Marie Le Pen admitted in 2013 to having held an account in Switzerland opened at UBS in 1981, a case already mentioned in the past. He then spoke of a loan operation for his record company at the time, Serp.