Okay, it’s not really the same world. The real Madoff, Bernard, his first name, had embezzled tens of billions of dollars and abused thousands of victims. In Alsace, Laurent Raynaud, 59, seems to be a much more modest crook. The man is suspected of having embezzled five million euros for 27 victims.
At the bar of the Saverne court (Bas-Rhin) on Thursday, he faced three judges. The man, free, denounced himself in 2020 in letters to his victims, explaining that he had abused their trust by offering to invest their money to grow it via his investment company. According to him, the sums were in fact swallowed up in his other advice structure (administrative, financial) for people in bereavement situations, which will be liquidated. The ride would have lasted from 2008 to 2020.
On Thursday, only four victims were at the hearing. “I want him to be held accountable,” explains a fifty-year-old Alsatian, who wants to remain anonymous. She confided with closed eyes to Laurent Raynaud, a former employee of the banking sector, “a friend since 2001”, “a few hundred thousand euros”, she explained, very moved, to journalists.
“It was very straightforward”, “documents like in a bank” and monthly statements, “we could not imagine the scam”, explains the one who never saw her money again and faces “financial problems considerable”. “He is very intelligent and very manipulative,” she asserts. Palpable emotion also from Michèle, 54, who also considered herself a friend of the defendant. She had entrusted him with several hundred thousand euros.
Lawyers for civil parties, Mr. Bernard Boulloud and Mr. Gloria Delgado-Hernandez took full advantage of the investigation led by the Saverne public prosecutor’s office, which lasted three years but according to them was very insufficient: short and late custody in August 2022, no search of the defendant’s home or use of his account statements… “We were not kept informed of anything,” fumed Me Boulloud, whose clients, a retired couple, lost 110,000 euros.
” Pardon “
Certainly, Laurent Raynaud reimbursed 1.5 million euros. But there remain more than 3.5 million in the wild about which we know nothing, the lawyer is surprised. The defendant, who does not have an expensive lifestyle, “was able to make a large part of it disappear”, perhaps in “tax havens”, and who could reappear “one day or another”, said Mr. Boulloud.
Too many gray areas remain in this case, which is impossible to judge as it stands: along with the four other lawyers for the civil parties, they are demanding additional information. Granted by President Violette Pradarelli, who designates the economic division of the research section of the Grand-Est gendarmerie to investigate rogatory commission.
Laurent Raynaud, who did not speak on the merits, reiterated “forgiveness” to the “people (he) betrayed” and whom he “made suffer”. The one who has since put together an administrative or tax assistance structure will explain himself at a new hearing on December 5. And will be confronted with the results of much more in-depth investigations this time.