French investigators on Monday placed tycoon Bernard Tapie in custody and interrogated him in a corruption probe over a huge state payout to him that has embroiled IMF chief Christine Lagarde, reports GlobalPost.
Tapie, who can be held for up to four days without charge, was questioned over a 400-million-euro ($525 million) state payout he received in 2008 when Lagarde was France's finance minister.
A combative Tapie played down the procedure.
"I don't give a damn," he told Europe 1 radio before his questioning on Monday. "I'm not worried. I cannot imagine what they could find."
The cash payout to Tapie, who served a prison sentence for match-fixing during his time as the president of France's biggest football club, Olympique de Marseille, related to a dispute between the businessman and partly state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais over his 1993 sale of sports group Adidas.
Tapie claimed that Credit Lyonnais had defrauded him by intentionally undervaluing Adidas at the time of the sale and that the state, as the bank's principal shareholder, should compensate him.
Lagarde was responsible for referring the issue to a three-man arbitration panel, which ruled in Tapie's favour.
Read more of this AFP report published by GlobalPost.