The wife of former budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac, who earlier this year sparked a political storm when he admitted having an undeclared Swiss bank account, is herself being investigation for alleged tax fraud, according to information received by Mediapart. Patricia Cahuzac, 57, who is currently undergoing a divorce from her husband, was placed under formal investigation – one step short of charges - on August 29th for alleged “tax fraud” and “laundering of tax fraud”.
On July 3rd and 4th she been detained for questioning by officers from the French fraud squad the Division nationale d’investigations financières et fiscales (Dniff) before being freed. In January this year she was questioned as a potential witness by Dniff officers as part of the initial investigation into claims, first published by Mediapart, that her husband had an undeclared Swiss account.
At that time Patricia Cahuzac, whose maiden name is Ménard, apparently told investigators that she dealt with neither her husband's finances nor his bank accounts. She is a dermatologist specialising in baldness. The couple have three children.
Jérôme Cahuzac, one of whose roles as budget minister in President François Hollande's government was to crack down on tax fraud, quit the government in March after a full-scale judicial investigation was launched into Mediapart's revelations about his overseas account. At the time the socialist politician vowed to clear his name, but in early April he finally admitted that he did indeed have such an account, an admission that triggered a major political scandal. He was immediately placed under formal investigation by examining magistrates for Renaud Van Ruymbeke and Roger Le Loire for “laundering the proceeds of tax fraud”.
Specifically, Jérôme Cahuzac said he had a bank account in Singapore with around 600,000 euros in it, an account he has since decided to close, bringing the proceeds back to France. Investigators believe the account was opened in 1992 at a branch of UBS bank in Geneva, and that the funds were transferred to private finance company Reyl & Cie at the end of the 1990s, before being moved to Singapore in 2009.
After the couple split it was Patricia Cahuzac who took over their hair transplant clinic that they had co-founded in Paris in 1991. The clinic has since been moved into the apartment that the couple used to live in at avenue de Breteuil in Paris's 7th arrondissement.
A number of witnesses have claimed that there were cash payments made at the clinic, which could explain why the former minister's wife is herself now under investigation for alleged tax fraud.
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English version by Michael Streeter