Emmanuel Macron’s disgraced former personal security aide Alexandre Benalla, who also served as deputy to the president’s inner cabinet chief, organised from the Élysée Palace a private deal to provide protection services to a Russian oligarch close to the Kremlin and who is suspected of ties to Russian organised crime. Benalla, who was initially dismissed from his post after assaulting people on the sidelines of a May Day march, last December also sold protection services to another Russian billionaire. The total of the two deals is worth 2.2 million euros, part of which was paid to Benalla in Morocco, Mediapart can reveal in this latest investigation into the growing scandal which, it is speculated, may be linked to the resignation announced this week of Macron’s most senior advisor, Ismaël Emelien.
While he was in post at the French presidential office, the Élysée Palace, Alexandre Benalla, whose job as security aide to President Emmanuel Macron and deputy to the president’s inner cabinet chief gave him access to confidential information, personally negotiated, from beginning to end, a contract for providing security services to Iskander Makhmudov, an oligarch with close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
