At first glance, the village of Nilo, situated in a mountainous region of Colombia, 150 kilometres west of the capital Bogota, appears an unlikely backdrop to a fast-unfolding political funding scandal that is circling the French presidency.
Even more incongruous in this Latin American link to the affair is the story of two village bars, called Nibar and Nichon, so-named after French slang meaning ‘titty' (nibar) and ‘tit' (nichon) - or alternatively, ‘boobie' and ‘boob'. They were run by two wealthy French local property owners, one of them a longstanding friend of President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The bars were opened in 2003 and 2005 by Thierry Gaubert and his friend Jean-Philippe Couzi, who own sprawling mansions situated on the outskirts of the village, both set close to each other in a private estate watched over by private guards.
Gaubert, 60, is a friend and former aide to Nicolas Sarkozy, for whom he notably served as communications director when the latter was mayor of the town of Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris, and later as an advisor when Sarkozy was budget minister in the government of former French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur.
In September, Gaubert, who is currently employed as communications director for the chairman of French banking group Banques populaires-Caisses d'épargne (BPCE), was placed under formal investigation in France - one step short of being charged - for "aiding and abetting the misuse of company assets" over his role in a suspected political funding scam connected to French weapons sales abroad.
The suspected illegal political funding is connected to French sales of submarines to Pakistan and frigates to Saudi Arabia in 1994, now the subject of an independent judicial investigation led by Paris-based magistrates Judge Renaud Van Ruymbeke and Judge Roger Le Loire. They are studying evidence that significant sums of money destined as bribes, or commissions, for local intermediaries in the two arms sales returned to France via secret bank accounts, in a system known as retro-commissions, to fund Balladur's political activities.
But the implications of the evidence emerging in the case go far further than the two deals in the 1990s.
Nicolas Bazire, 54, managing director of French luxury goods group LVMH and another longtime friend and aide of Sarkozy's, who was the French President's best man for his marriage to Carla Bruni in 2008, was in September also placed under investigation for embezzlement in connection with the affair, as was Franco-Lebanese arms dealer Ziad Takieddine, a key intermediary in both deals. Importantly, Takieddine, as Mediapart has revealed, continued to play a central role in numerous weapons sales mounted by Nicolas Sarkozy's senior aides during the past decade (see links to Mediapart's investigations on page three).
As Mediapart revealed earlier this month, Gaubert's 1,000 square-metre mansion in Colombia, called ‘Cactus' and built in 2001 complete with an artificial lake, was acquired with funds hidden in secret off-shore bank accounts. French magistrates Van Ruymbeke and Le Loire discovered the existence of the property in July this year, after ordering a police search of Gaubert's offices at the BPCE. The judges are preparing a request for the cooperation of the Colombian authorities to further their investigations into the origins of the secret off-shore funds.
Mediapart reporters, who travelled to Nilo late November, have discovered that the activities of Gaubert and his friend Jean-Philippe Couzi have already attracted the attentions of the Colombian police Their investigation into suspected money laundering was launched by the local public prosecutor's office two years ago, and involved Colombia's Unidad administrativa especial de información análisis financier, the UIAF, a government agency specialized in financial crime.
The Colombian enquiries focused on the two men's neighbouring properties, Gaubert's ‘Cactus' and Couzi's similarly grand residence, ‘Palmera', the bars Nibar and Nichon along with other businesses in the village, and a hotel Couzi owns on the north Columbian coastline, at Santa Marta.
Mediapart can reveal that, according to local administrative documents, ‘Cactus' and ‘Palmera', which were built within a short time of each other, separately belong to two off-shore companies based in Panama, respectively Monahan International and Airedale Business.
During their investigations, the Colombian police, acting without a search warrant, were refused entry to the Gaubert and Couzi mansions by guards. Couzi, who unlike Gaubert is a permanent resident in Columbia, was subsequently summoned for questioning in Bogota, when he gave a statement declaring that "my assets in Columbia do not come from any type of money laundering, but [were acquired] from the sale of assets I owned in France".
In Nilo, the village's ‘municipal commercial affairs legal controller', Joaquin Parga, told Mediapart that among Gaubert and Couzi's local businesses figured a chicken bulk sales depot called El Pollo frances. "It is illicit," said Parga, "all around they set up front businesses no-one had ever heard of, putting men of straw everywhere."
Enlargement : Illustration 4
But the two businesses that attract most of the locals' attention are the bars Nibar and Nichon, which some villagers allege attracted the occasional presence of prostitutes. Gaubert opened Nibar in 2003 when, back in France, he was serving as a chargé de mission, or mission manager, with the then French state secretary for parliamentary affairs, Jean-François Copé, who is now secretary-general of France's ruling UMP party.
Contacted by Mediapart, both Gaubert and Couzi dismissed the claims of the presence of prostitutes in the bars. Couzi said the allegations were nothing more than local "tittle-tattle from Nilo folk", while Gaubert insisted: "It is a normal bar, the Nibar, there were never prostitutes at the Nibar." Questioned about the choice of names for the bars, Gaubert said it was a simple "play on words". He said that he had recently sold his stake in the business.
Off-shore ownership 'most anonymous and safest'
Couzi told Mediapart: "Together with Thierry Gaubert, we established the Nibar in 2003 with, I believe, 10,000 dollars each. Our third associate is the owner of the property, a Colombian, Rodrigo. Nichon was the name of the second bar I established alone in 2005, which didn't work very well and which is now a general store that I rent out. The building, made up of one storey, includes about ten studios that I rent out mostly to military personnel from the Espro military school."
Gaubert's estranged wife, Princess Hélène of Yugoslavia, with who he is in the process of divorce, gave French police investigators working under Judge Van Ruymbeke a statement on September 8th in which she said she had been informed of "an atmosphere of moral debauchery" in Gaubert's Colombian mansion. "In 2006, [Couzi's former wife] Astrid Betancourt (1) informed me that funny things were going on in Thierry's house, when he was there with my son," her statement read. "Astrid informed me that there was an atmosphere of moral debauchery there. She told me that, while my son was on holiday with his father, four very young prostitutes were with Thierry and that they wandered around the house naked. That profoundly shook me up for my son, who was then aged nine years."
Contacted by Mediapart, Jean-Philippe Couzi detailed by email a quite different account of the events described by Hélène Gaubert. "Hélène Gaubert was not at Nilo when the so-called prostitutes passed by for a weekend at Cactus," he wrote. "On the other hand, Astrid Betancourt came especially from Bogota without warning, accompanied by her mother and another person, to collect her children manu militari because, indeed, the nanny who was looking after her children had told her by telephone of the presence of vulgar people in the house."
"There were indeed three young girls there, with one of their [male] friends, who all came from Barranquilla and who were passing through the region," Couzi continued. "I had invited them for the weekend at Cactus. It is because of their ‘lower-class' manners that these young girls had been taken by the employee, alerted by Astrid's daughter, little accustomed to ‘vulgarity', for prostitutes."
In a separate response, Gaubert told Mediapart the allegations were part of a plot. "This woman [Astrid Betancourt] never set a foot in the house when I was there," he insisted. "What she said is a part of the set-ups against me."
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Asked to comment on the photo above, obtained by Mediapart, Couzi replied: "Nice picture. It's true that they look like hookers, those two."
Gaubert told Mediapart that Couzi's female acquaintances had nothing to do with him. "That Monsieur Couzi has young women around him, yes," he said. "It is not a crime. He does what he wants, I know nothing. He lives with minors if he wants. I don't see what that has to do with me."
Gaubert also told Mediapart that he had "no other" company business activity in common with Couzi apart from the Nibar.
The two men have been friends for 35 years, and their closeness is demonstrated in the construction of their properties on the same estate at Nilo. "It is me who looks after the administration of the two properties, cactus, that of Thierry Gaubert, and mine, Palmera, since they were built," Couzi explained to Mediapart. He said the reason his property was placed "in the name of an off-shore company" was because, in the context of guerilla activity in Colombia "it was the most anonymous and therefore safest method".
Numerous emails seized by French police this year testify to a mutual management of the estates. One of them, published here below, dated July 1st 2011, begins:
"Buenas,
(Please reply to this secure email address)
I'm letting you know that I cashed at the beginning of the week the remainder of the sum of the sale of the land to the American, that being $100,000, meaning $50,000 for you.
What must I do with this sum?
Do I transfer it to one of your accounts or do I keep it to pay the expenses for Cactus?
Without any important work, this provision should suffice for paying the costs up until the end of next year, and it will save me from sending you permanent reminders.
On the same subject, good news, I've just done the accounts for the second quarter and you emerge with credit of more than $4,500 (that's due to the partial sale of Nibar and from the rentals) [...]"
Enlargement : Illustration 7
Mediapart has gained access to the text of a sworn attestation by Gaubert's estranged wife Hélène, dated July 12th 2009, in which she claimed Couzi had "often carried out international business" with her husband. "I sometimes accompanied them to Switzerland, Florida and the British Virgin Islands" she wrote. "Indeed, in my home I found a document that referred to a bank account that Jean-Philippe Couzi holds with the Citibank in Florida, to which my husband sent [money] transfers."
"Jean-Philippe Couzi has always had a very expensive lifestyle," she continued. "In Colombia, he organizes sumptuous parties, has luxurious cars, employs numerous people to serve him."
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1: Astrid Betancourt is the sister of Ingrid Betancourt, the Franco-Colombian politician who was held hostage for six years until her release in 2008 by the FARC armed guerrilla movement.
'Thierry said the Bahamas was best hiding place'
Couzi strongly denies part of Hélène Gaubert's claims. He told Mediapart that he had "never set foot in Switzerland or the British Virgin Islands with Madame Gaubert," then adding: "To Florida, yes. On holiday at her parents' place, in Palm Beach, during the 1990s, once or twice with Thierry Gaubert accompanied by Nicolas Sarkozy."
Indeed, Couzi's relationship with Gaubert provided an introduction to several members of Nicolas Sarkozy's inner circle of friends. Several photographs seized by French police investigators, working under Judge Van Ruymbeke, show him in the company of Nicolas Bazire, the managing director of French luxury goods group LVMH and the French President's best man for his marriage to Carla Bruni in 2008. In September, Bazire was placed under investigation for embezzlement by Van Ruymbeke for his suspected role in illegal political funding via French weapons sales abroad.
Enlargement : Illustration 8
Couzi denied Hélène Gaubert's claim that he was involved in "international business" with Gaubert, but confirmed the existence of an account with Citibank in Miami. "It is an account that I opened in 2001 or 2002," he told Mediapart. "I opened this account in all legality, [through] the Citibank in Bogota. It is perfectly legal in Colombia to open a US account with a checkbook and credit card. The sums that Thierry Gaubert transferred to me each quarter served exclusively for the upkeep of Cactus." Couzi added that he had "never undertaken any business deals of any sort with Thierry Gaubert, neither in France nor Colombia."
The name of Thierry Gaubert's finca, ‘Cactus', is also the codename of a bank account he opened in the Bahamas in 2001, the year the mansion was built. The account, which was never declared to the French tax authorities, is used by Gaubert to regularly transfer cash payments to Couzi in Colombia for the expenses in managing the property - including fixed charges, repairs, and upkeep.
In a statement on September 21st given to French police working for Judge Van Ruymbeke's investigation, Gaubert said the Bahamas' account was opened on the advice of the Picte bank in Geneva, with which he has an account containing other secret funds. Despite the apparent connection between the account, codenamed ‘Cactus', and his mansion in Nilo, called ‘Cactus', he told the French investigators: "The trust is called Cactus but that has nothing to do with the property in Nilo."
Judge Van Ruymbeke's investigation, meanwhile, has established that, according to latest available information, the Bahamas account is credited with 2.6 million dollars.
The magistrate has also discovered that arms dealer Ziad Takieddine, the key intermediary in the 1990s arms deals with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and who continued, until at least 2009, to broker arms and trade deals on behalf of President Sarkozy's senior aides, had transferred 100,000 dollars to Gaubert's Bahamas account in October, 2010. Questioned about this in September, Gaubert gave French investigators a statement in which he explained: "I didn't want this to appear officially in France, whether on one of my bank accounts or in cash."
Gaubert's wife Hélène, questioned earlier that month, on September 8th, said of the account in the Bahamas: "Thierry simply explained to me that the Bahamas was the best way to hide and that neither the police nor the tax authorities would ever be able to find what he had hidden in the Bahamas."
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For more on the background to the issues raised in this interview and Mediapart's exclusive investigations into the political scandal surrounding the activities of arms dealer Ziad Takieddine, click on the links below:
The Sarkozy aide and his secretly-funded Colombian mansion
Exclusive: British witness in French funding scandal hits back at ‘protected’ arms dealer
The arms dealer and his 'friendly' services for UMP leader Copé
French IT group Bull horned by libyan internet espionage deal
French judge finds key evidence in illegal funding probe
British divorcee becomes key witness in French political funding scandal
Net closes in on French presidency after funding 'scam' arrests
Arms dealer probe brings illegal funding scandal closer to Sarkozy
The secret financier who brings danger to the Sarkozy clan
Sarkozy, the arms dealer, and a secret 350 million-euro commission
The well-connected arms dealer and his tax returns
How Sarkozy aides saved arms dealer from paradise island 'death blow'
Exclusive: how Sarkozy's team sought grace for Gaddafi's murderous henchman
The arms dealer and his Paris party for the glitterati
Exlusive: how President Sarkozy's team dealt with Gaddafi
When Total paid the bill for the Elysée's secret emissary
How French intelligence shields the sarkozy clan's unofficial emissary
Divorce court freezes arms broker's assets
The French-built stealth offroader that may be hiding Gaddafi
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