In 2010, a French judicial investigation was opened into evidence that several African leaders and their families hold vast assets in France gained from embezzlement of the public funds of their countries. Among those targeted by the investigation, which was triggered by anti-corruption NGOs, is Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso, head of what the World Bank classifies as one of the world’s ‘Heavily-Indebted Poor Countries’, where a quarter of children aged under five suffer from malnutrition. Mediapart has learnt of the details of a police raid on a luxury property close to Paris belonging to Nguesso’s nephew Edgard, where they found vast sums of cash, jewellery and watches and evidence that the multi-million-euro apartment is funded by an offshore company whose accounts are fed by the Congolese treasury. Fabrice Arfi reports.
It was on the morning of October 3rd 2014 when French police investigators arrived at number 76 bis boulevard Bourdon, in the upmarket Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. They had come to search the premises of a fifth-floor apartment belonging to Edgard Nguesso, nephew of Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso.
