Gilbert Chikli after his arrest in Ukraine in 2017 – SERGEI SUPINSKY / AFP
- For two years, crooks pretended to be Jean-Yves Le Drian, then Minister of Defense, to extort several million euros from wealthy figures.
- For these facts, seven people appear from this Tuesday before the Paris criminal court. Their trial is scheduled to last until February 12.
- Arrested in Ukraine in 2017, Gilbert Chikli, an ace of the anarch, is suspected of being, with Anthony Lasarevitsch, one of the brains of the gang.
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The modus operandi immediately got the researchers’ attention. Who else but Gilbert Chikli could have the cheeky idea of pretending to be the minister of the defense,
Jean-Yves Le Drian, to extort huge sums from victims persuaded to come to the aid of France? What other bandit would have the scale and network to launder the tens of millions of euros paid in record time?
When seized in July 2015, the police of the Central Office for the Repression of Serious Financial Delinquency immediately think of this Franco-Israeli man in his fifties, who has just been sentenced in absentia to seven years in prison and a 1 million euro fine for defrauding several large companies, such as HSBC or Alstom, using a similar technique.
A daring malefactor whose story inspired the film I count on you, directed by Pascal Elbé, whom he advised. Gilbert Chikli is considered one of the pioneers of “false president” scams. The idea is as simple as a phone call: criminals pretend to be businessmen on the phone in order to get large sums of money transferred by employees. Between 2005 and 2006, he defrauded around thirty banks and companies.
In 2015, Gilbert Chikli is on the run in Israel where, relaxed, he gives interviews on I24 News. It was not until two years later, in 2017, that he was arrested in
Ukraine with Anthony Lasarevitsch, 35 years old. With five other men, they are on trial from Tuesday before the Criminal Court of
Paris, for “criminal association”, “organized gang scam” and “taking the name of a third party”.
Investigating judges Clément Herbo and Aude Buresi are convinced, after four years of investigation, that the two men are the brains of the gang which approached 150 targets by posing as Jean-Yves Le Drian: humanitarian associations, business leaders as well as religious dignitaries.
Silicone masks
The case began in July 2015. The Tunisian Ministry of Defense is surprised at the cabinet of Jean-Yves Le Drian to have received documents concerning a strange sale of Tiger helicopters. France, it is written, claims Tunisia no less than 19 million euros in exchange for four planes. And the sum must be paid as soon as possible. A few days later, the president of the Republic of Gabon, Ali Bongo, receives the call from a man imitating the voice of the Minister of Defense French, asking him to pay 10 million euros as part of a top secret operation.
The first to fall into the trap is the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of Ismaili Shia Muslims, then 79 years old. Convinced of having talked to the French minister on the phone, he transferred 20 million euros to accounts in China or Poland. Some transfers may have been blocked, but 8 million have vanished into the wild …
In the months that followed, the false minister sought financial assistance from the Fondation des apprentis d’Auteuil, the Sidaction association, the NGO Acted or the Lanson group to pay the ransom of hostages or finance operations. against terrorism. Promised, France will reimburse them quickly. Sometimes, to give confidence to the people you are talking to, the one who is there like Jean-Yves Le Drian call their interlocutors in videoconference via Skype and appears on the screen for a few moments, sitting in the dark behind a desk in front of a French and European flag, before pretending to have a connection problem.
The investigation is entrusted to Parisian examining magistrates while the crooks multiply the attempts. In November 2016, they managed to convince Inan Kirac, one of the first fortunes of Turkey, to pay $ 47 million into accounts in China and the Emirates to free two French journalists held hostage.
Very quickly, the investigators discover that the criminals call from Israel … where is Gilbert Chikli. He has been on the run since his conviction and an international arrest warrant has been issued against him. But Israel does not extradite its nationals. There, he knows he is safe from French justice. In 2017, he was finally arrested in Ukraine and extradited to France. The police are convinced that he was planning with his accomplices a new blow: pretending to be Prince Albert II of Monaco and defrauding rich victims.
In their phones, they even found photos of inconclusive trials of silicone masks purchased in Turkey. Before the examining magistrates, Gilbert Chikli proclaims his innocence and even says he is “shocked and blown away” by being accused. Before letting go, a bit provocative:
“It’s still amazing that everyone knows who did it, except you. I don’t have to say who, what or what, but everyone knows it except you. “
Voice analysis
But the examining magistrates have little doubt about his involvement. The experts who analyzed the tapes of the false minister’s calls recognized in his voice several characteristics of that of Gilbert Chikli: “noisy breathing”, “a recognizable peremptory tone”, “a particularly rapid articulation speed”, “a repetitive structure of the construction of sentences “,” speech markers used massively to punctuate speech with a preference for “listen, that’s it, then, good, bah” “.
“The voice is a pivotal element in this file”, explains to 20 minutes Me Delphine Meillet, lawyer for Jean-Yves Le Drian and several of her collaborators. Whoever is today
Minister of Foreign Affairs expects from this trial “that the perpetrators will be sentenced, that the identity thefts will stop definitively”, continues the Parisian lawyer. Jean-Yves Le Drian also wishes to be able to “resume his professional life” … and to telephone without his interlocutors wondering if he is really the one calling them.
Contacted by 20 minutes, Gilbert Chikli’s lawyer, Stéphane Sebag, said that he “reserves [s]we make arguments for the court ”. The defendants face up to ten years in prison. The trial is scheduled to last until Wednesday, February 12. At the same time, the judicial investigation continues to finish uncovering the money laundering circuit.
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