Monaco is a small world, a micro-state where secrecy, privilege and exclusive relations have been practiced for decades. Dmitry Rybolovlev understood this very well, and used his purchase in 2011 of the locally sacred football club AS Monaco to provide a base from which he was able to spin a web of influence all the way to the top of ‘the Rock’, the site of the royal palace.
Documents from Football Leaks (see 'Boite Noîre' bottom of page), obtained by German weekly Der Spiegel, together with legal files studied by Mediapart and dozens of interviews it has conducted with people close, or once close, to the oligarch, reveal the clientelism that the billionaire developed in Monaco, a tax haven in the belly of Europe which enjoys very privileged relations with its giant neighbour France.
The story behind this concerns far more than the world of football alone. It in fact has all the characteristics of a scandal of state, one that allowed Rybolovlev and his entourage an exceptionally close relationship with the judicial and political authorities of the principality, to the point of obtaining information about ongoing investigations, and even to participate in drafting a law.
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Its unveiling threatens to provoke a major crisis in Monaco, amid a now fast developing judicial investigation into alleged corruption of local officials, launched after a complaint filed by individuals previously close to Rybolovlev.
That investigation is led by Judge Édouard Levrault, a French examining magistrate assigned to the Monaco judiciary in 2016 (under bi-lateral conventions, the Monaco judiciary, largely based on the French judicial system, includes around 17 magistrates from France, appointed by Paris to various roles). On November 7th, the judge placed Rybolovlev under formal investigation for suspected influence peddling, corruption, and being in receipt of information that breached the confidentially of judicial investigations.
In a statement issued to Mediapart by one of his lawyer’s (the full text of which can be found at the end of this report, page 5), Dmitry Rybolovlev has denied involvement in “any wrongdoing or inappropriate conduct”.
The placing under investigation of a person is a legal step that precedes charges being brought, but implies the discovery of serious or concordant evidence that they committed a crime. Under French law, a person placed under investigation is presumed innocent unless proven guilty by a court of law.
The unfolding affair threatens to engulf the principality’s judiciary, as well as the close circle of individuals around Monaco’s reigning monarch, Prince Albert II, whose accession followed the death in April 2005 of his father Prince Rainier III, who had ruled over the Rock since 1949. Monaco’s former justice minister, its former interior minister and three high-placed officials (one still in activity, the two others now retired) were also placed under investigation last week.
“You have understood that this situation is not comfortable,” said Prince Albert in an interview with Mediapart. “But I think one must allow the justice [services] to continue right up to the very end.” Asked about the allegations that Dmitry Rybolovlev had established his influence over a part of the Monaco state apparatus, Prince Albert commented: “If all of that was established, I think that he would by himself choose to withdraw.”
True to his reputation for discretion (see the first report in this series), Rybolovlev is not directly involved in the management of AS Monaco, the football club he took a 66.6% stake in in 2011, nor his business activities on ‘the Rock’, as Monaco is often called (le Rocher in French). Rather, he supervises operations, which are conducted by two of his closest aides.
One is lawyer Tetiana Bersheda, 34, the daughter of a Ukrainian diplomat appointed to Switzerland, and who has Swiss nationality. She began working for Rybolovlev after obtaining a doctorate in law at Fribourg University, and is a member of the Geneva bar. A resident of Monaco since, she is a board member of both AS Monaco and Monaco Sports Invest (MSI), the Monegasque company through which Rybolovlev controls the football club. She also works on legal issues for the Russian’s family office in Monaco, Rigmora, which employs a staff of around 20, and manages Rybolovlev’s relations with local institutions. Her role with AS Monaco gives her easy access to Monaco high society, and in 2015 she became president of the prestigious association of “Friends of the ballets of Monte-Carlo”, which supports and promotes the principality’s classical ballet company.
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The other most trusted aide to Rybolovlev is Vadim Vasilyev, a 53-year-old Russian who often refers to the oligarch by his initials “DR”, and who is vice-president and CEO of AS Monaco. He arrived in Monaco alongside Rybolovlev, and has become a well known figure on the Rock, with a jovial manner and a perfect mastery of the French language. “Vadim”, as he is endearingly called, who previously knew little about the workings of professional football, represents the club throughout Europe and ensures its daily functioning with competence.
In spreading their influence in Monaco, Bersheda and Vasilyev began by inviting local personalities to matches. A list presented to Rybolovlev by Vasilyev in July 2013, when AS Monaco won France’s Ligue 2 division and thus qualified to return to France’s top-flight Ligue 1, identified around 100 people who were to be offered match seats.
As is often the case at football clubs, the plan was to offer regular invitations to representatives of local authorities, in this case principally those from the State ministry (the Monaco government) who were allocated “66 places”, and from the palace (“26” places). The practice was a well-organised system of clientelism which led to courtier-like interest for the newly arrived and little-known oligarch who had taken over the club so prized by Prince Albert.
In the course of his investigation, Judge Édouard Levrault questioned AS Monaco’s deputy director general Nicolas Holveck. “Is, to your knowledge, the fact that a football club offers invitations to public entities normal and/or usual practice?” Levrault asked Holveck. “’Normal’, I cannot judge, but ‘usual’ yes, most certainly, and in the 40 clubs in Ligue 1 and 2 in France,” Holveck replied. “[…] I know that all professional clubs act like that, because of having relationships with all the institutions in France and, in this case, in the Principality.”
But in Monaco, the practice had taken on an exceptional dimension. Following the questioning of Holveck, AS Monaco provided the judge with a document detailing that, apart from “seasonal” invitations, amounting to 573, there were also, on average over the previous three seasons, another 2,557 match invitations offered by the club. That represented considerable generosity by the club whose season ticket-holders paid subscriptions ranging from 150 euros to 7,000 euros for a place in a VIP box.
Some within the club’s management opposed the extent of the invitations, which inevitably represented a loss of revenue. In January 2015, Henri van der Aat, a marketing director who was about to leave the club, wrote to Vadim Vasilyev a list of tasks his successor should deal with as a priority. “I have carried out a complete analysis of the home match against Arsenal to know what happens with each seat, because the match will be full,” wrote van der Aat. “I thus analysed which seat is attributed free of charge to who and why. It was quite shocking, because a lot of money is once again lost. It is important that you know how many seats for example go the police, to the government, to the mayors etc.”
Since then, the club records requests for seats, including from ministers, advisers, police officers, which is notified in a list to Vasilyev, in his office at the club’s training ground at La Turbie, just across the border in France, and who validates them in consultation with staff from Rigmora, Rybolovlev’s family office. Vasilyev chooses who will sit alongside the oligarch in his box, deciding sometimes at the last minute, like for wedding guests around a dinner table, on the seating arrangements.
On October 24th 2017, retired Monaco police commissaire (inspector) Christian Carpinelli recounted to Judge Levrault the “favours” Rybolovlev gave “with regard to certain high-ranking figures”, and notably in the police. Carpinelli served as AS Monaco’s head of security in 2013, when, he said, he “had knowledge of the list of beneficiaries of invitations” to the matches. “There were essentially the chiefs of staff of the police,” he told the judge, and he interpreted this as “a delicate manner on ASM’s part to win over the good services of the police”.
On some occasions, the invitations come with added hospitality; for a match that AS Monaco was to play in Lyon on May 7th 2016, Vasilyev proposed to Monaco state minister (head of government) Serge Telle, appointed three months earlier, to travel with him in a private jet. The plane belonged to Alexei Fedorychev, another Russian oligarch who owns Fedcom which is a long-standing sponsor of AS Monaco. Mediapart has been told that Telle accepted the invitation, and travelled with his son, then aged 13. Two months later, the state minister was offered a seat on the plane again, this time for a match AS Monaco was to play in Istanbul, but cancelled his presence at the last minute.
The invitations sent out by Vasilyev, and also Bersheda, were not confined to people in Monaco; international business associates of Rybolovlev were also hosted, as was Swiss businessman and art dealer Yves Bouvier, the owner of the Geneva and Singapore free ports with whom Rybolovlev had long done business with until the two fell out in 2015.
Since then, Rybolovlev and Bouvier have been fighting an epic legal battle over the Russian’s claim that Bouvier marked up the true value of numerous artworks sold to the oligarch, who notably claims he was overcharged by 47.5 million dollars in his purchase of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, the world’s most expensive artwork valued at 450.3 million dollars.
Rybolovlev lodged a complaint for fraud against Bouvier, who in October 2017 counter-attacked with his own legal action against the Russian for corruption, money laundering and fraud. Meanwhile, Tania Rappo, a former friend of the Rybolovlev family who was also cited in the oligarch’s complaint against Bouvier, filed a complaint against Tetiana Bershida, Rybolovlev’s lawyer, for having recorded without her knowledge a private dinner meeting between the two in 2016.
Presents for Princess Charlene and top civil servants
The corrupting influence of match invitations distributed by clubs to high-ranking officials has long been largely underestimated. In France, the former socialist junior minister in charge of the budget, Christian Eckert, wrote on the subject on his blog in July 2018. Underlining “the lobbies of the sport economy are among the most powerful” of any, he continued: “The boxes in stadiums overflow with parliamentarians, ministers, ministerial cabinet members, CEOs. The invitations addressed to them are of course as devoid of ulterior motives as much as they are free of charge and appreciated.”
The practice most certainly allowed the Rybolovlev clan to establish firm relations in Monaco, which in some cases grew more personal as time passed. Frédéric Fusari, deputy chief of Monaco’s police judiciaire, the criminal investigation branch of the police, sent a mobile phone text message to Tetiana Bersheda about an upcoming Champions League semi-final match between AS Monaco and Italian club Juventus on May 3rd 2017. “The Italians will snatch up the seats,” he wrote. “I saw that! It’s brilliant ))) I take out two invitations for you?” replied Bersheda. “We’ll see, but it’s kind to have thought of it,” answered Fusari, who was in charge of the investigation opened in Monaco into Rybolovlev’s formal complaint against Bouvier.
David Wigno is a lobbyist and former aide to Monaco national councillor (parliamentarian) Laurent Nouvion who was president of the National Council (Monaco’s parliament) from 2013-2016. Wigno was also active in the unsuccessful bid by former French prime minister Alain Juppé to become the conservative candidate in France’s 2017 presidential elections. Wigno was hired by Vasilyev to help with his relations with the press and government.
In September 2015, he wrote to Vasilyev ahead of AS Monaco’s away tie against Brussels club Anderlecht in a UEFA Europa League group stage match: “Vadim, regarding the Anderlecht trip on 17/9 what do you think if I took 3 elected representatives up there with me? […] I think it would be good if we continue to look after the [Monaco parliamentarians] Allavena, Crovetto, Clerissi, etc.”
It was Wigno who introduced Vasilyev into high-society events, who organised dinners with politicians, and advised him on club strategy – including among his suggestions, “join the Federation of Monegasque Businesses”, “become closer to the population”.
But Wigno was also a hands-on figure. On April 23rd 2015, he and Bersheda succeeded in cancelling the planned publication by Monaco monthly L’Observateur de Monaco of a six-page feature article on the dispute between Rybolovlev and Bouvier. “The article is deleted,” Wigno wrote to Bersheda after a phone conversation with the monthly’s owner. Bersheda replied: “Are we sure that nothing will come out?” to which Wigno firmly answered “Yes”, adding: “I must see DR (with you) for an update on the evolution of his image in Monaco and about the media project so that we can rebalance things for if ever one day we should have future attacks.”
Questioned by Mediapart, Wigno confirmed the events, saying “I was indeed prompted to take action to postpone the publication of an article of which certain aspects were too approximative”.
It was perhaps to “rebalance” the situation that Wigno had AS Monaco buy, in October 2016, 10,000 euros-worth of advertising in another local monthly, La Principauté, which vaunts itself as “Monaco’s leading newspaper”. It was a small investment for a profitable move: “Here is an order for advertising to continue AS Monaco’s support for this newspaper,” Wigno wrote to Vasilyev’s deputy. “You will have understood that this is uniquely about politics.” He added, “it’s now 2 years that we’ve been doing this”.
Questioned by Mediapart, Wigno said: “When an intervention of this sort is described as ‘politics’, it is no more and no less than a misuse of language while talking about media strategy.”
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Wigno would pass on to Rybolovlev’s entourage first-hand information such as a secret Monegasque government document drawn up by its Department of Finance and Economy. The document, which concerned a property move for AS Monaco’s shop, was handed to Vasilyev in October 2014 with an accompanying message that read, “confidential, obtained from an elected representative”. Two months later, an AS Monaco staff member advised that pressure should be brought on members of parliament (national councillors) to unblock funding for the renovation of the club’s stadium. Vasilyev asked Wigno for his opinion on this, to which Wigno replied: “It must be discussed but for the moment we first put the [members of parliament] in the pocket.”
Questioned about that comment, Wigno said: “As of the moment that one explains the good grounds for a project, one seeks de facto to obtain the global approbation of an opinion […that is] political.”
Wigno was active outside of the principality, and in September 2016 he wrote to Vasilyev: “My lobbying work among politicians is permanent: it was optimal in London and even here in Strasbourg.”
Concerning numerous members of the Monaco elite, the gifts that were distributed went well beyond the allocation of match seats, and included presents for the end-of-year festivities. In November 2011, in an email entitled “Christmas presents”, Bersheda corresponded with a member of staff at Rigmora about a list of ministers, civil servants and parliamentarians who should receive a present from “DR”. The Rigmora employee wrote: “We offer very good wine to the men, and Champagne and chocolate to the women.”
The list of those to who the presents should be sent was passed on by Belgian businessman Willy de Bruyn, a board member of AS Monaco. De Bruyn, a Monaco resident close to Prince Albert, had been introduced to Rybolovlev by Bersheda in 2011, and was reportedly the go-between for Albert and Rybolovlev when the latter sought to settle on the Rock. He has remained a devoted ally of Rybolovlev and his entourage.
It is unclear why De Bruyn struck up such a loyal relationship. According to information presented to Mediapart, in August 2017 AS Monaco planned to pay out 33 million euros, before tax, to its nine board members, who include De Bruyn. “There was never question of this at the board meeting,” De Bruyn told Mediapart. Another board member, Jean-Pierre Gastaud, commented: “It was perhaps an internal project, but such a sum was never paid to board members.” Gastaud said he had never been paid anything since Rybolovlev took over the club in 2011.
Meanwhile, De Bruyn, who is also Morocco’s “honorary consul” in Monaco, is paid by the Russian via his company Eurusa, which is a service provider for Rigmora.
The list of those to receive Christmas presents which De Bruyn passed on to Bersheda in 2011 contained eight names. These included then prime minister (called minister of State) Michel Roger and three members of government; interior minister Paul Masseron, finance minister Marco Piccinini and social affairs minister Stéphane Valeri. The remaining four were civil servants; the principle captain and inspector with the Monaco police, the Sureté publique, the person in charge of visa procedures at the French embassy, and the head of Monaco’s public employment services. The names of the prime minister and his three ministers were underlined, and Bersheda wrote in an email that for them, the gifts of wine must be “VERY good (not just good)”. Bersheda also ordered that “good wine” should be sent to the then president of parliament, Jean-François Robillon, and his cabinet chief, Jean-Sébastien Fiorucci.
Questioned by Mediapart, a spokesperson for Monaco’s royal palace said that the “reception of gifts of courtesy, regulated by law, has never led to disrupting the proper functioning of the services of the State”.
Two articles of Monaco law stipulate that in theory public servants cannot “accept, directly or indirectly, gifts, favours or any other advantage, during the exercise of their responsibilities, susceptible to influence, or appear to influence, the impartiality with which they must carry out their mission of public service”. However, the law does allow for an exception to this “on the occasion of traditional events such as notably the end-of-year festivities”, when public servants may “receive customary gifts of courtesy or hospitality”.
“It is an old tradition in Monaco to send gifts for Christmas to one’s friends and relations, such as delicacies, Champagne and wine,” said Willy de Bruyn. “Above all, don’t read into this an attempt at corruption.”
Rybolovlev was to rapidly adopt such local traditions. In 2013, AS Monaco drew up a list of 91 people who were to receive presents, and who included those in the world of professional football (in France’s Ligue and football federation, in UEFA and at FIFA), and above all the higher social echelons of Monaco, including Prince Albert and his wife Charlene. One of Prince Albert’s closest aides, Bruno Philipponnat, wrote to Tetiana Bersheda on December 25th 2013: “I am both very touched and embarrassed, but above all assure [Dmitry Rybolovlev] of my dedication for the prince for helping ASM [AS Monaco].”
The following year, Vasilyev’s personal secretary drafted a new list of beneficiaries, divided into four categories beginning with “Very VIP (VVIP)” who were made up of those representing the top 16 key people for Rybolovlev in Monaco. Prince Albert was to receive the gift allocated in this category, which was completed with a 200-gramme box of Beluga caviar.
But the oligarch’s clan was no less generous during the rest of the year, contrary to what Monegasque law normally allows. In February 2011, Bersheda and De Bruyn organised the sending of presents of fine wine to the prime minister Michel Roger and interior minister Paul Masseron following the rapid delivery to Rybolovlev of a residency permit. The bottles cost several thousand euros. She had also planned to send to a third person, “the head of the police” a gift of a watch, but, she wrote, “he is apparently afraid to receive it”.
Such apprehension appeared to have been dissipated four years later. On February 26th 2015, just as the investigation had been opened into Rybolovlev’s formal complaint against Bouvier, Bersheda offered Monaco’s police chief Régis Asso a samovar, sent to his home. “Thank you Tetiana for your dispatch which very much touched my strong sensibility for Russia,” wrote Asso afterwards, in a message revealed by French daily Le Monde. “Could you address my sincere thanks to Dmitry Ryboloblev.” Asso concluded: “I assure you both of my loyalty and send you my warmest greetings”.
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The closeness of that relationship took an even more surprising turn two weeks later. After Asso sent Bersheda an article about the progress of the investigation into Rybolovlev’s complaint against Bouvier published by French weekly news magazine Le Point, she sent a mobile phone text message to the police chief which began, “Dear Régis, thanks you very much!”, adding: “Indeed, we were able to obtain the freezing of assets in Singapore […] but it was possible only thanks to the efficiency of your investigations! Once more, bravo, and thanks to all your team and yourself personally.” Bersheda had referred to a Singapore court’s decision to freeze Bouvier’s assets, in a ruling published on March 12th 2015.
Bersheda and Vasilyev also went about sending more modest gifts, like two AS Monaco team shirts bearing the name “MBappé” – for Kylian Mbappé – which were sent to prime minister Serge Telle just before the player left the club for Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2017. Another example was when Willy de Bruyn had AS Monaco’s star Colombian striker and team captain Radamel Falcao sign two shirts for the children of Prince Albert’s personal secretary.
On June 21st 2016, a secretary to Princess Charlene, the former South African Olympic swimmer Charlene Whittstock who married Prince Albert in July 2011, wrote to Rybolovlev:“Her Serene Highness, the Princess of Monaco, asked me to thank you most sincerely for the wonderful running shoes, sports bag and the clothes you have kindly sent. Very touched by your gesture and your consideration, Her Serene Highness will wear these presents with great pleasure.”
Jobs for the boys
In June 2014, Bersheda and Bruno Philipponnat, Prince Albert’s aide, together organised the prince’s holiday stay on the Greek island of Skorpios, which Rybolovlev had bought in 2013 for his daughter Ekaterina at a cost of around 113 million euros. The following month, during the World Cup football tournament in Brazil, Rybolovlev rented out a villa in Rio for a period of 30 days (at a cost of 300,000 euros) where he organised a grand dinner party to which Prince Albert and his entourage were invited. “I hardly remember having encountered Mr. Rybolovlev in Brazil,” Prince Albert told Mediapart.
In August 2016, Prince Albert spent a day aboard Rybolovlev’s yacht anchored in the Mediterranean off the French island of Corsica. The prince made the trip by helicopter, travelling to the Corsican port of Porto-Vecchio accompanied by a bodyguard. That evening, he returned to Monaco with Vadim Vasiliev and Stéphane Morandi, a close acquaintance of Albert’s who runs an audio-visual production company.
The following year, Prince Albert accepted another holiday invitation from Rybolovlev, this time at a property the oligarch owns in Majorca.
“I have never passed several days in a row with Mr Rybolovlev,” Prince Albert told Mediapart. “It was always occasional.” The prince said he had been invited several times by Rybolovlev to the San Firmin festival in the Spanish town of Pamplona, which the oligarch attends every year. “I did not accept to go there,” said Prince Albert. “I have other things to do, but neither can I say ‘no’ to everything and, then, one needs to keep good relations with those people.”
At the end of summer in 2015, Vadim Vasilyev celebrated his 50th birthday, with 113 hand-picked guests. It was a grand occasion, held at the five-star Cap Estel hotel which sits on a two-hectare peninsula on the French Riviera. The AS Monaco vice-president rented out the whole of the establishment for three days at a price of 100,000 euros, excluding the cost of food (and notably ten kilos of caviar) and the 98,000-euro cost of entertainments (dance performances and concerts, and a fireworks party beside the swimming pool) of which 30,000 euros was paid in cash.
The seating arrangements at mealtime were meticulously planned in order to bring people of diverse backgrounds close together. These included Vasilyev’s family members and old friends who had made the trip from Russia, Monegasque guests such as interior minister Paul Masseron and his wife, and high-profile figures from the world of football, including Didier Deschamps, the France national team coach and former coach of AS Monaco. Pierre Ferracci, president of football club Paris FC and latterly a close acquaintance of now-French president Emmanuel Macron, was also due to attend but had to cancel his presence at the last minute for personal reasons.
Those seated at table “number 2”, the one that was closest to Vasilyev, were seated David Wigno, Tetiana Bersheda, and Monegasque parliamentarians Jean Charles Allavena and Jean-Louis Grinda, and Dmitry Bakatin, a former official with Gazprom Media and the vice-president of the Russian football federation. “I have the weakness to think that my invitation to this magnificent evening party was not because of my title of parliamentarian, but on a personal basis,” commented Allavena.
Vasilyev was keen to help all the projects driven by the palace and its supporters. In September 2017, the Monegasque government’s communications (PR) director Geneviève Berti wrote to Vasilyev to inform him of a project of Guilaine Chenu, a former journalist with the current affairs programme Envoyé Spécial, broadcast by French public channel France 2, to produce a documentary. Chenu was known at the time as being the personal partner of Serge Telle, appointed Monaco prime minister in February 2016.
The project documentary planned to chart how, “through an immersion in the heart of the Monegasque reactor,” AS Monaco “confronted with structural difficulties that were apparently unresolvable”, managed to make its mark among the big clubs. Vasilyev told the journalist that he was ready to “collaborate” with her, who he said was “yourself a professional in the business and in who we have total confidence”. One month later, an official invitation was sent from the “Minister of State of the Principality of Monaco” – its prime minister – and “Madame Guilaine Telle” – his wife – for a dinner at the government offices, l’Hôtel du gouvernement.
“Madame Berti is the door of entry for every request by a journalist in the principality,” said Chenut. I asked her therefore if it would be possible to obtain an appointment with the training club of AS Monaco. I could have directly asked the minister of state [prime minister] the mobile phone number of Mr Vasilyev, given they know each other. But that was not the method I chose, precisely so that there was no confusion between private and professional life.”
For AS Monaco board member Jean-Pierre Gastaud, “Monaco is a village.” A person close to Prince Albert, whose name is withheld here, said that in Monaco, “ Everyone knows each other, so there are potentially conflicts of interest all the time.”
This “village” proximity raises questions concerning relations with the police. The Rybolovlev team can use employment as a tool for consolidating good relations. On July 16th 2014, Monaco police chief Régis Asso asked Bersheda for a personal service. “I am sending you, a little late, the CV as indicated to you of the youngster [name withheld by Mediapart] and would be very grateful to you if you could give him an appointment. He is the son of my Russian teacher,” wrote Asso, who had 36 years of service in the police behind him, using his professional email address.
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Bersheda immediately sent on the request to Vasilyev and a staff member of Rigmora. “I send you the email received from the chief of police,” she wrote. “I met him one month ago in the street and he told me that a son of his Russian [language] teacher was a student in computer studies seeking a job or an internship and that he would really like to help him.” The problem for Bersheda was that, “Mr Asso asked me if there was a place for him in the family office”. That was excluded for obvious questions of “confidentiality”. Indeed, it was unthinkable that someone recommended by the police chief be admitted into the heart of Rybolovlev’s business operations. So Bersheda asked Vasilyev, “Vadim, do you think then that he could be useful to the club?”.
Vasilyev wrote to the club’s Human Resources director stating that, “I don’t think we need an extra person in the IT department,” while also suggesting that the young man could be given a short-term contract of “2 to 3 months”. Two months earlier, at the beginning of May 2014, Marie-Noëlle Gibelli, a member of Monaco’s parliament since February 2018, contacted Prince Albert’s cabinet director Georges Lisimacchio to help further the ambitions of her son who was a trainee at the Monegasque football academy. Two weeks later, interior minister Paul Masseron wrote to Vadim Vasilyev about Gibelli’s “request” concerning “the integration of her son in the coaching academy”.
The teenager, who an AS Monaco coaching staff member described as having “a certain quality” and of being “a good student” was recruited for a period of one year on an “amateur” contract, which did not include a salary but allowed for the club taking charge of “food and education”. Finally, despite the help from on-high, the youngster never made it to the professional team. In the summer of that same year, 2014, Vasilyev was preoccupied by the question of another employment request.
On August 6th 2014, he met with Louis Ducruet, the son of Prince Albert’s sister, Princess Stéphanie, and seventh in line to the throne. Born in 1992, Louis Ducruet, who had recently finished his spots management studies at the University of North Carolina, was seventh in line to the Monegasque throne. On Vasilyev’s request, AS Monaco’s communications director Bruno Skropeta prepared a note in which he outlined that Ducruet, “Wants to become an agent of football players in the future (and bring Asians to Europe).” He continued: “Or simply work in the field of football. He is an enthusiastic supporter of AS Monaco (every day he visits the website and sees every match).” Skropeta added that the young man had “a very good relationship with the prince (he was invited by the prince along with Pierre and Andrea Casiraghi to the final in the World Cup in Brazil)”. Pierre and Andrea Casiraghi are the sons of Prince Albert’s sister Caroline, Princess of Hanover.
Vasilyev wanted to recruit the young man. On November 26th 2014, Vasilyev’s personal secretary informed him: “As requested, Nicolas Holveck met Louis Ducruet today about his request for an internship at ASM.” After his internship in the summer of 2015, Vasilyev wrote to general secretary Raphaël Locatelli on October 21st 2015, to say that Louis Ducruet should be given a “one-year contract as a scout, salary 3,000 per month”. Ducruet worked on identifying new professional players and in April 2016, he presented a first project for the club’s expansion into the Far-East. Vasilyev personally made sure his contract was renewed in October 2016 and also the following year.
In 2014, Delio Onnis, an icon for AS Monaco supporters who scored more than 150 goals during his seven years as a striker with the club during the 1970s, and who is a close acquaintance of Prince Albert, was due to renew his contract as a scout and recruiter for the club. But the management was unimpressed with his performance, which it considered poor if not inexistent. “In my opinion, his contracts in the past have always had a ‘political’ inspiration,” commented Dhondt. At the meeting when Onnis was informed by club representatives that his services would no longer be required, he threatened to raise the matter with prince Albert. Vasilyev subsequently renewed the contract and announced the news himself to the prince.
Another contract was to cause a stir. On April 4th 2015, interior minister (formal title ‘councillor’) Paul Masseron, a former French prefect with political ties to Jacques Chirac (president of France from 1995-2007), and who, as is the custom, was assigned to the Monegasque government by France, officially retired from his post. He was immediately hired by AS Monaco as an “advisor” to its president Dmitry Rybolovlev, with a gross monthly salary of 4,166.66 euros. As interior minister, Masseron was of course the hierarchical boss of those services that were involved in investigating Rybolovlev complaint against Yves Bouvier.
“There is every reason to think that […] Paul Masseron would have been regularly kept informed of the course, progress and developments of the enquiry led by the investigators,” commented Judge Levrault during his questioning of a Monegasque magistrate. Levrault added that there was reason “to note the existence of a disturbing concomitance between the recruitment of Paul Masseron within the club, in particular for a post that supposed an undeniable proximity with Dmitry Rybolovlev, and his previous and recent responsibilities for which would have had knowledge of the development of a judicial investigation in which the staggering financial stakes directly concerned the latter [Rybolovlev].”
The surprising collaboration in a police investigation
The case of Masseron was all the more troubling in that when he was minister he was clearly close to the Rybolovlev team. At the beginning of 2013, when AS Monaco was secretly preparing to recruit Colombian striker Radamel Falcao, the club’s management counted on the minister’s services to solve a tax problem. The aim was to organise Falcao’s arrival in Monaco for June, before the beginning of his employment by the club, so that the player could justify a claim at the end of the year to have lived in the principality for more than six months, and therefore benefit from the highly advantageous status of being a tax resident there.
On February 6th that year, Vasilyev wrote to an employee of Rybolovlev’s family office Rigmora and AS Monaco “councillor” Filips Dhondt to explain the problem. Dhondt immediately replied: “Dear Vadim, inside the club there is a know-how about that […] It could be also be interesting to ask for a meeting with the interior councillor [minister], Mr Masseron. He comes to all the home games, he’s a true partisan supports the club in every manner possible. I think that would be a more discreet way of managing things rather than beginning by discussing with the people of the Monaco administration about this specific case.” Vaslyev replied: “I am sure that the minister who you mentioned will help speed things up.”
The following year, apparently demonstrating that there had been no friction over the matter, Vasilyev called on Masseron’s services again to help with a personal matter. “Dear Paul, following our conversation I am sending you attached here the residency permits of my wife and myself,” Vasilyev wrote to Masseron. “It will be necessary to soon renew the permit of Olga Shchukina.”
Asked what Masseron’s duties at the club were, AS Monaco told Mediapart: “Mr Masseron was engaged part-time from April 15th 2015 to June 30th 2018. His mission consisted notably in representing the club with rival teams, and with officials in the framework of national and European competitions.”
Meanwhile, club board member Willy de Bruyn told Mediapart: “I am not aware of Mr Masseron’s mission.”
In July 2017, one of Rybolovlev’s associates in the capital of a restaurant just across the border on the French Riviera wrote to Vasilyev to explain that the manager of the establishment had been targeted by a money extorsion racket. While a complaint had been filed with the police, “it is important to act in the quickest manner with the prefect and to ask for a plain clothes police officer as soon as possible up to the end of September.” Vasilyev wrote to Masseron: “Dear Paul, I hope you are well. Please look at the case and suggest to me a plan of action.” Masseron swiftly replied. “I know the Prefect of the Var well, my former colleague Jean-Luc Videlaine,” wrote Masseron, referring to the Var département (equivalent to a county) where the restaurant was situated. “He is currently confronted, as you know, by serious problems (forest fires with their dramatic consequences). But I’ve just got hold of him, asking that special attention be paid to this sad business.” Several hours later, Masseron announced the excellent news: “Prefect Videlaine has just called me back: he is actively looking after it with the gendarmerie.”
Questioned by Mediapart, Vasilyev said of the matter: “It is simply a question of a request for personal advice.”
Enlargement : Illustration 6
The recruitment of the former minister to the service of Rybolovlev caused concern for lobbyist David Wigno. As French weekly Le JDD revealed in July, Wigno sent a text message to Bersheda on April 19th 2015, in which he warned: “Tetiana. We didn’t talk about it but the story about Masseron is extremely bad for DR.” He added: “Just between us, it’s really incredible that in Monaco this type of arrangement is proposed by the minister, who is himself detested. Of course, you can count on me for the treatment in case of need. But for the basics it’s a bad operation and the press risks saying that at the time of the B [Bouvier] case, Mr R [Rybolovlev] recruits a former prefect. I know them in France. They will inevitably go over the top.”
Questioned by Mediapart, Paul Masseron, who was last week placed under investigation by Judge Levrault, and who remains innocent of any crime unless proved guilty, said: “I assert that I have committed no reprehensible act.”
Another former member of Monaco’s government is today in difficulty over his relations with the Russian billionaire. Philippe Narmino was both president of the state council (equivalent to prime minister) and also director of judicial services – equivalent to a justice minister, a position that comes directly under the authority of Prince Albert rather than the government – until he was forced to announce in September 2017 he was stepping down from both positions following revelations by Mediapart and French daily Le Monde of his closeness to Rybolovlev. Narmino, who was awarded France’s Legion of Honour (the highest French award for civil merit) in August 2012, spent the weekend of February 20th-22nd 2015 on a skiing holiday with his wife Christine in Rybolovlev’s luxury property in the Swiss ski resort of Gstaad. Three days later, on February 25th, Yves Bouvier and Tania Rappo were arrested in Monaco over Rybolovlev’s official complaint against Bouvier.
The ongoing judicial investigation has also shone light on the activities of Narmino’s son, Antoine Narmino, a legal advisor based in the principality with whom Rybolovlev’s lawyer Tetiana Bersheda has worked for several years. Antoine Narmino first made contact with Bersheda in February 2012, when she showed herself to be very interested in his services as a legal advisor. Since then, Antoine Narmino has carried out numerous missions for the Rybolovlev clan. In February 2015 he was involved in organising an escrow agreement between two offshore companies, Denizen and Ore Market, registered in the British Virgin Islands and which are linked to Rybolovlev. According to legal documents, Narmino received payments, in February and October 2015, of 25,000 euros and 100,000 euros respectively from bank accounts at HSBC in Monaco – now closed – of two offshore companies belonging to Rybolovlev.
Antoine Narmino enjoys a barely hidden friendship with Bersheda, built up with invitations to AS Monaco football matches. On January 28th 2016 he sent himself an email message in the form of a “to do” list, which read “create a BVI for Ekaterina”. Whether this concerned Katia Rybolovleva, the Russian billionaire’s daughter, is uncertain. Antoine Narmino, who was also placed under investigation this month, failed to respond to several requests submitted to him for an interview.
In December 2012, Antoine Narmino acted as advisor to AS Monaco in a business dispute it had with a Monaco company, and was apparently helped by his father, in charge of the justice services in Monaco since 2006. “I’ve just gone through all these documents […] before replying about the substance of the case, you should send an email to Tetiana […] of this sort,” wrote Philippe Narmino to his son, who subsequently used his father’s suggestion almost word-for-word.
When the occasion arose, Monaco’s head of judicial affairs also directed potential clients towards his son, who had become specialised in the management of offshore structures and also in the obtaining of residence permits in Monaco. Narmino senior also helped his son prepare a reply to be given to a journalist in defence of his offshore company Dotta & Narmino after its existence was revealed in the Panama Papers leaks.
In September 2017, Antoine Narmino phoned his father about his summons to appear before Judge Levrault, complaining, “Bloody hell, the guy’s a machine!”. Philippe Narmino reassured his son, promising to “really piss off” the judge at a procedural level by asking him in writing for guarantees that the secrecy of the investigation files will be respected, as demanded by law. This is called in French le secret de l’instruction, which refers to the reglementary confidentiality of the case files of a judicial investigation, which despite the law are sometimes leaked.
Narmino senior, who resigned in September 2017, also sent out two emails via his professional account concerning the investigations into Rybolovlev in which he secretly copied in his son.
Philippe Narmino did not reply to questions Mediapart submitted to him. The former Monaco justice minister was placed under formal investigation on November 8th for suspected influence peddling and corruption.
Apart from the ministers, civil servants are also caught up in the scandal. As Mediapart revealed in August 2017 (in French here), several mobile phone text messages show that Bersheda was in regular contact between January and September 2015 with Christophe Haget, principal commissaire (chief superintendent) and head of the Monaco police criminal investigation department, as well as also his deputy, Frédéric Fusari. Both men were in charge of investigating the complaint against Bouvier lodged by Rybolovlev on January 9th 2015.
It was Bersheda who, on February 23rd 2015, alerted Haget and Fusari to the imminent arrival in Monaco of Yves Bouvier – who was immediately arrested. “Good evening,” wrote Bersheda to the two men. “He will come on the 25th [of February], in the morning. That’s certain. Plan A should remain in place. Call me back when you can please. Thanks! Tetiana.” Haguet replied the following day: “Very well, I’ll call you back from the department. Kind regards.”
The two police officers had previously announced their intention to launch legal proceeding against Mediapart for defamation over the article published in August 2017, which they finally did not proceed with. They did not respond to Mediapart’s request for an interview before publication of this report.
Tetiana Bersheda and Dmitry Rybolovlev have launched legal action against Mediapart, which will have the opportunity to demonstrate the authenticity of its information and its conduct in good faith when the case reaches court.
On February 26th 2015, after the arrests of Yves Bouvier and Tania Rappo, commissaire Haget assured Bersheda that he was working to prolong the custody of the two and suggested that he and Bersheda “see each other at around 10 o’clock [the next day] to touch on all the points in the file”.
Dmitry Rybolovlev had demanded that the two officers should keep him personally informed. On February 24th 2015, Bersheda sent Fusari a request from the oligarch. “He also wanted to talk to you by conf call if we don’t see each other tonight… Is that possible? For example around 17h15-17h30?” wrote the lawyer. Fusari replied: “Around 17h30.” On March 2nd she wrote again to the officers: “Hello. I hope you had a good weekend. Will you be in the office today? DR would like to pass by to see you to have an update and discuss what’s next before his departure tomorrow from MC [Monaco] for one week. Thanks in advance. Tetiana.”
Meddling in lawmaking
Two weeks earlier, Bersheda sent an email to the police officers informing them that “the Paris affair”, which referred to a French aspect of the Bouvier case, “is in the news”. She included a link to an article published that day in The Telegraph. Haget replied to her, writing: “Bravo, well played!”
In August 2017, Haget sent a lengthy note to the Monaco interior minister complaining of the lack of support received from his hierarchy. In it, the officer said notably that “the director of the police [Régis Asso], speaking Russian, the language of Rybolovlev, receives him before each meeting of the criminal investigation department, in deference to the Monaco president” and that “the instructions of the hierarchy (re-sic) remain to consider the plaintiff [Rybolovlev] as an ultra-VIP”.
Jean-Pierre Dreno is a French magistrate who served as chief public prosecutor in Monaco from May 2011 until September 2015. On December 7th 2017, his former deputy, Mickaël Bonnet, was questioned by Judge Levrault, when he recounted how Dreno had called him into his office to tell him that Bersheda “intended recording Tania Rappo” without the latter’s knowledge. “I told him that she was committing an offence and that it was a very bad idea,” said Bonnet.
Contacted by Mediapart, Jean-Pierre Dreno said he had not advised Bersheda “to record the conversations that she might have had with Ms Rappo or, incidentally, someone else.”
Philippe Narmino’s successor as justice minister and prime minister (respectively, in the official Monaco nomenclature, head of judicial affairs and president of the Council of State), was Laurent Anselmi, who took over the roles in October 2017 after Narmino was forced to step down (officially taking early retirement). Anselmi was also questioned by Judge Levrault in June 2018, when he said he had been invited to lunch by Bersheda in September 2014 and January 2015 – the latter date being the very day that Rybolovlev had filed his complaint against Bouvier. At that time, Anselmi was “government representative for judicial affairs”.
Anselmi said Bersheda’s lunch invitations were in connection with a project to create an “international centre of arbitration” in Monaco, which he said was his own initiative and had nothing to do with the case against Bouvier. The lunches, however, were paid for by Bersheda. Questioned by Mediapart, Anselmi stated: “I discussed very regularly with a number of legal practitioners. It is in that context that I accepted the two lunch invitations from Ms Tetiana Bersheda.” He insisted that he discovered “the existence” of the dispute between Rybolovlev and Bouvier only later, “during the summer of 2017”.
In October this year, the chief prosecutor of Geneva announced he was closing any further procedures regarding a complaint filed by Yves Bouvier against Rybolovlev in which the art dealer claimed that his former Russian partner had asked him, at the end of 2014, to corrupt the Swiss magistrates who were in charge of the case of the billionaire’s divorce from his wife Elena
But the prosecutor’s ruling to dismiss Bouvier’s complaint, the detail of which was revealed by Swiss daily La Tribune de Genève, was damning for Rybolovlev and his entourage. It notably confirmed that Tetiana Bersheda had sent Bouvier, on September 30th 2014, a list of the magistrates in charge of the divorce case and which, the prosecutor’s office noted, “tends to lend credit to the argument of Yves Bouvier”. But the complaint was nevertheless thrown out because, read the prosecutor’s ruling, if “an attempt to compel or corrupt is punishable [by law], simple preparatory acts to actively compel or corrupt are not punishable”.
The ruling, which referred to “an activity by Tetiana Bersheda that appears incompatible with the profession of a lawyer”, was passed on by the prosecutor’s office to the Geneva bar commission.
In a right of reply sent to French weekly Le Point following an article it published on October 19th about the Geneva public prosecutor’s ruling, Rybolovlev’s legal team wrote that, “despite [the] shortcomings in the justification of the ruling, the chief prosecutor says in it explicitly that the actions denounced by Mr Bouvier ‘cannot be upheld as having been legally established’”.
Tetiana Bersheda, who was also placed under formal investigation last week by Judge Levrault, sent a statement to Mediapart in which she declined to be interviewed on specific issues raised in this report, but in which she firmly insisted that “I have never collaborated in, or taken part in, an illicit activity or one that is in contradiction with the duties of my profession” (the full text of her statement can be found at the end of this report).
After turning his interest to football and his purchase of AS Monaco, numerous people in Monaco believed Rybolovlev intended to obtain Monegasque nationality, and there is speculation as to whether, before investing in the club, he may have been given an assurance from circles close to the palace that this would be granted. “Mr R [Rybolovlev], like a lot of foreign residents in Monaco, might have hoped to one day obtain Monegasque nationality,” wrote Willy de Bruyn in reply to the question.
The Monegasque palace has confirmed to Mediapart information it received that the billionaire has already submitted a request to obtain Monegasque nationality but that it was turned down by Prince Albert. The palace said the refusal was a demonstration of the prince’s “independence and the absence of outside influence over his exercise of power”.
However, thanks to his position as president of AS Monaco, Rybolovlev did obtain a passport of sorts with which he planned to travel to the United States to receive medical treatment. This was a “service passport”, a category of Monegasque passports which is exclusively granted to people who lead a mission to represent the principality abroad. Rybolovlev could not officially have obtained one in the context of travelling for a surgical operation, however important that was. But, in an email sent on April 29th 2014 to Willy de Bruyn by Marc Vassallo, the deputy to the secretary general of Monaco’s Ministry of State, De Bruyn was advised on the “language elements”, or wording, to use in the application to obtain the special passport. The billionaire’s trip would, he wrote, not be officially for medical reasons but rather for the promotion of Monaco abroad.
Enlargement : Illustration 7
But in the end Rybolovlev had to change his plans. Because of delays at the US embassy, the billionaire was finally operated on in all urgency on June 18th 2014 in the Dominican Republic by the surgeon who had been due to carry out the surgery in New York.
Through his privileged status in Monaco, the Rybolovlev teambecame directly involved in the preparation of a Monegasque law. In 2011, the government and national council (parliament) launched an important reform designed to heighten the attractivity of Monaco. Tetiana Bersheda was directly involved in drafting a part of the text, concerning the legal status of Monegasque-based trusts, in close collaboration with Jean-Sébastien Fiorucci, the national council president’s cabinet director.
The issue was of considerable importance for Rybolovlev since the moment he came close to paying out 4 billion euros to his former wife Elena Rybolovleva as part of their divorce settlement which she had petitioned in Switzerland. That was in 2014, when, in the first ruling on their divorce, Swiss magistrates ordered that Elena was to receive half of the assets owned by her husband, which were contained in trusts based in Cyprus. In another ruling the following year, that decision was overturned when the Swiss magistrates decided that under the terms of the Hague Convention on Law Applicable to Trusts, the substantive law of the country where the trusts are registered is applicable – in Rybolovlev case, it was the law in Cyprus. An amicable agreement which finalised the divorce was finally reached, although the terms of this remain confidential.
In Monaco, a group of legal experts who formed the “Mestre commission” were working in coordination with Fiorucci to bring Monaco’s laws regarding the territorial status of foreign trusts in line with the Hague Convention. Which was the reason that Rybolovlev and his entourage were so interested in the reform.
In a statement, the palace told Mediapart that in theory, “no individual can orient a legislative or regulatory text in order to favour a particular interest”. It added that the advice of professionals can be received before a “study of their pertinence by high-level jurists and the services of government before the launching of the legislative procedure”.
Mediapart has been informed that on October 10th 2011, Jean-Sebastien Fiorucci, a fan of the TV series House of Cards, confidentially sent Bersheda the full details of the proposed new laws governing trusts. Fiorucci, who was close to Rybolovlev’s entourage (he was invited to travel with some of them to Britain on August 28th 2011 to watch a match between Manchester United and Arsenal), concluded that the first summary of the commission’s work was positive for the interests of the oligarch, and even pledged to personally ensure progress in the matter.
Fiorucci did not respond to the questions submitted to him by Mediapart.
One month later, on November 1st 2011, Fiorucci sent Bersheda a new version of the draft new law. She offered him her own propositions on the draft legislation, informing him also of consultations with a lawyer who took part in drafting legislation to protect assets held in offshore structures in Gibraltar and the British Virgin Islands. Fiorucci thanked her.
The draft legislation was finally passed by the Monaco government to the national council on June 11th 2012. The text was incorporated into larger draft legislation entitled “Draft law on the modernisation of economic law” which was presented for debate on July 1st 2013.
After a lengthy procedure, the legislation was finally adopted on June 22nd 2017 in the form of “law N° 1448 relating to private international law”, presented as a “liberal” approach with the objective that “residents must have at their disposal legislative points of reference which are as close as possible to those that they have in the country of their nationality”. The rapporteur for then new legislation underlined that, “In bolder terms, it is about making sure that residents in the principality be as if they were in their country of origin”. The goal had been achieved.
Since the latest developments in the investigation by Judge Levrault, notably the placing under investigation of Dmitry Rybolovlev, the oligarch left Monaco for Moscow on November 9th, since when his whereabouts are unknown. Not even to Prince Albert. “I only learnt that he has left the principality,” he told Mediapart. As to whether Rybolovlev had dismissed his personnel before leaving, the prince said, “I cannot confirm that to you”.
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In response to questions submitted to Dmitry Rybolovlev before publication of this report, Mediapart received the following statement from one of his lawyers:
"In response to your request of 24 October 2018, we would like to inform you that in light of ongoing legal proceedings, it is not appropriate for us to provide comments on the substance of your questions at this stage. In addition, we have serious doubts as to legality of the sources and accuracy of your information.
Nevertheless, we deny any and all underlying suggestions that Mr Rybolovlev might have been involved in any wrongdoing or inappropriate conduct."
Also before publication of this report, Tetiana Bersheda, who was submitted questions about the issues raised in this report, sent the following statement:
“In reference to your email below, I note that to reply to the questions you have addressed to me would constitute a violation of my duties regarding the professional confidentiality required of a lawyer. As a result, I am unable to give a positive response to your invitation.
Surplus to this, I limit myself to making clear that I have never collaborated in, or taken part in, an illicit activity or one that is in contradiction with the duties of my profession. Any insinuation of the opposite may become the object of legal action.
To this day, there exists no judicial or other decision that supports the insinuations that underly in your questions and, to human view, an upcoming publication.
Moreover, I am saving my explanations for the competent authorities in the ongoing procedures.”
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- The French version of this article can be found here.