Five Caesars will be in the dock this Thursday at the Paris court. Actress Isabelle Adjani, suspected of having concealed a loan donation and of having fictitiously domiciled in Portugal, is on trial for tax fraud and money laundering. “We will plead for the acquittal of Ms. Adjani of all the facts with which she is accused, our client having committed no offense,” declared the artist’s counsel Stéphane Babonneau and Olivier Pardo.
Known for her roles in Queen Margot (1994), Skirt Day (2008) or more recently Masquerade (2022), the 68-year-old actress and singer was the target of an investigation since 2016 following the Panama Papers. In the revelations of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), she was cited as the owner of a company in the British Virgin Islands, Deckert Investments Limited, founded with the support of the Mossack Fonseca firm and registered in July 2014.
Loan or donation?
The investigations did not show any offense linked to this offshore company, but they uncovered other suspicions which led to a summons from the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office to court. Firstly, two million euros transferred by Mamadou Diagna NDiaye, an influential Senegalese businessman, president of the Senegalese National Olympic and Sports Committee and member of the International Olympic Committee.
The actress is suspected of having passed off what was a donation as a loan, which would have allowed her to evade 1.2 million euros in transfer taxes. “All the elements of the file and the investigation make it possible to demonstrate, without any ambiguity or possible doubt, that our client benefited in 2013 from a loan from a close friend,” assured Mes Babonneau and Pardo. “This loan was the subject of a contract duly registered with the French tax administration upon its signature in 2013, as required by law. The loan is now at an advanced stage of repayment,” they added.
Troubled links in Portugal
Isabelle Adjani is also accused of having fictitiously domiciled in Portugal, thereby evading 236,000 euros of income tax. “If there was a difference of assessment with the tax administration on the location of her tax residence in 2016 and 2017”, the actress “today has no tax debt, whether in France or in the Portugal and settled everything she owed,” according to her defense.
Isabelle Adjani will also be tried for money laundering between the United States and Portugal in 2014. She is suspected of having “passed through an American bank account not declared to the tax administration the sum of 119,000 euros coming from an offshore company to the unknown beneficial owner and intended for an investment in Portugal,” a judicial source indicated in July. For his advice, “no money laundering operation can be blamed” on their client who “will provide the court with all the necessary explanations on this point”.