A painting by Combas, a sculpture by the artist Cesar, hundreds of bottles of fine wine, pieces of leather goods and luxury vehicles: if it doesn’t smell, drug money is more good taste.
Justice has got hold of “an alleged money laundering network involving several individuals, including many managers of companies residing mainly in the Aix region”, announced this Thursday the public prosecutor of Marseille.
Forty-five million euros in drug money
Eight people were indicted on counts of money laundering, drug trafficking, criminal conspiracy, extortion, kidnapping, fraud in an organized gang, forgery and use of forgery, concealed work in an organized gang, abuse of corporate assets and concealment. Seven of them were imprisoned in this exceptional case. The investigators, who carried out 30 searches of individuals and company headquarters from May 22, estimate the sums laundered since 2017 at 45 million euros.
During these searches, numerous works of art, 23 luxury vehicles, large sums of cash, a significant number of jewellery, leather goods and luxury items, including 25 valuable watches, as well as several hundred bottles of fine wines and champagne were seized.
The result of a previous operation
In concrete terms, the companies suspected of having allowed this massive money laundering collected “transfers or checks from construction companies in return for the massive remittance of cash from illegal activities, in particular drug trafficking, after deduction of a commission. Regarding the origin of the species, a link was made in particular with an activity of resale of narcotics within a Marseille city, ”specifies the prosecution.
The assets thus transformed into online bank accounts “were then used for the acquisition, mainly in Germany, of vehicles then exported to Algeria”, details the press release Dominique Laurens, the public prosecutor of Marseille. The cash collected by construction companies enabled them, in particular, to finance the use of concealed work.
This historic case follows a previous operation carried out in early April and resulting in the indictment of 13 people, suspected of having laundered 4 million euros over a period of four years. The modus operandi was roughly similar with cash remittances to construction companies, which then issued transfers on the basis of false invoices.