They were placed under judicial supervision. Two men suspected of having participated in a destabilization operation against the backdrop of real estate issues targeting four relatives of Prince Albert II of Monaco, have been indicted in Paris for “concealment of attacks on an automated data processing system” , confirmed the prosecution.
The two suspects, a Belgian entrepreneur and a Monegasque presenting himself as a lawyer, according to the JDD who revealed the information, had been arrested on Tuesday and then placed in police custody at the premises of the cybercrime brigade (BL2C).
The “Club of 4” around the prince was targeted
A preliminary investigation was opened in November 2021. Its purpose was to examine a complaint by four men denouncing the dissemination, on a website entitled “Dossiers du Rocher”, of videos, confidential email exchanges and articles dependent in connection with real estate projects in Monaco, according to the JDD.
These four men are “Laurent Anselmi, chief of staff to Prince Albert II, Thierry Lacoste, lawyer and childhood friend of the prince, Didier Linotte, president of the Supreme Court of Monaco […]and Claude Palmero, […] administrator of the sovereign’s property”, specifies the JDD, indicating that they were referred to as “Club of 4” or “G4”.
An operation with “significant financial resources”
According to a source quoted by the newspaper, the two suspects “are probably only second knives in this well-orchestrated operation” which required “significant financial resources”, i.e. several million euros.
The judicial information which was opened on Thursday also targets the offenses of maintaining data in an automated system, fraudulent extraction of data from a computer system and interception of electronic correspondence, according to the prosecution.
Real estate development in the Principality of Monaco, a microstate where the average price per m2 is among the highest in the world, is at the heart of financial issues.