Two homes of Bernard Tapie searched by order of the Belgian justice

The justice Belgian searched two homes of the businessman Bernard Tapie at Paris and to Saint Tropez (Where) in connection with an investigation into possible financial fraud.

“Financial offenses”

These searches were carried out on Wednesday March 17 by French police officers, in the presence of Belgian police officers and a magistrate.

The investigations concern “An investigation opened at the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office for possible financial offenses”, told the AFP spokesperson Wenke Roggen.

A villa in Saint-Tropez at the heart of the investigation

According to RTBF, Belgian investigators from the central office for the fight against organized economic and financial crime (OCDEFO) and a federal magistrate “Are particularly interested in a villa in Saint-Tropez, called La Mandala”.

Searched on Wednesday, this villa with an estimated value of 60 million euros, where Bernard Tapie would stay regularly, is the property of the company South Real Estate Investment (SREI), the Luxembourg subsidiary of the Belgian company GBT Holding owned by the man. business and former minister.

“Suspicion of abuse of corporate assets”

However, GBT Holding was put into compulsory liquidation by a court in Liège (eastern Belgium) in December 2018 while SREI was declared bankrupt in September 2020. The investigation relates in particular to “Suspicions of abuse of corporate assets and offenses linked to the state of bankruptcy”, indique la RTBF.

Always according to the RTBF, the investigators also examine the conditions of the purchase of the villa by the SREI and the role of facilitator in the transaction allegedly played by Lucien D’Onofrio, former vice-president of the Standard de Liège football club and long-time friend of the French businessman.

Bernard Tapie’s many setbacks with justice

Former Minister of the City under François Mitterrand, Bernard Tapie, is due to appear in May before the Paris Court of Appeal for “Scam” in the case of a controversial arbitration in 2008 which had granted him 403 million euros to settle an old dispute with the bank Crédit Lyonnais during the resale of Adidas.

The trial was postponed last year due to the condition of the 78-year-old businessman who suffers from double cancer of the stomach and esophagus.

Bernard Tapie has had many setbacks with French justice. He was notably sentenced in 1995 to prison in the case of the rigged match OM-Valenciennes, and the same year for tax evasion in the use of the yacht Le Phocéa. He was also sentenced in 2005 to a third prison sentence for tax evasion.

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