A report published this week by the Greens-EFA group in the European Parliament presented the conclusions of a study of tens of thousands of documents provided by the Offshore Leaks platform of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and which identified the principal intermediaries behind tax evasion. The report demonstrates that many of them are well-known names among banks and financial institutions, operating in countries across Europe as the vehicle for the transfer of huge sum to tax havens. Dan Israel reports.
An activist has gone on trial in a town in south-west France for having “requisitioned” some chairs from a bank. Jon Palais and others took the chairs as part of a wider protest against tax evasion and the use of tax havens which costs France billions of euros a year. The bank in question, BNP Paribas, took exception to the protest and made a formal complaint over their “stolen” chairs. But as Dan Israel reports, the legal complaint backfired as Palais and his supporters turned the trial into a media event in which the bank's own actions were held up to scrutiny.
Former French budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac and his ex-wife Patricia were on Thursday found guilty by a Paris court of tax fraud and moneylaundering the proceeds of the tax fraud. The socialist politician was sentenced to three years in prison and banned from holding electoral office for five years, against which he immediately appealed. Patricia Cahuzac was handed a two-year prison sentence. The verdict was announced almost four years to the day since Mediapart published the first revelations about the secret foreign bank account belonging to Cahuzac, who was then in charge of a crackdown on tax evasion. Michel Deléan reports.
Beginning in 2008, Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo channelled just under 150 million euros earned from commercial deals into the Caribbean tax haven of the British Virgin Islands and in Switzerland, according to documents from the whistle-blowing platform Football Leaks and revealed by Mediapart and its media partners in the European Investigative Collaborations consortium. After first avoiding the scrutiny of the Spanish tax authorities, the Real Madrid player wound down the offshore company involved in the scheme, escaping a potential tax payment of 31 million euros. Michael Hajdenberg, Michel Henry and Yann Philippin report.
French budget minister Christian Eckert said 'audits have begun' on 560 people suspected of tax evasion after their identities were revealed in the so-called Panama Papers leaks of clients of Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca.
At the end of a two-week trial for tax fraud and money laundering, Paris prosecutors this week demanded a sentence of three years in jail for former socialist French budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac, and two years in prison for his former wife Patricia. The court will announce its verdict and sentencing in December. The trial was prompted by Mediapart’s exclusive revelations in 2012 of how Cahuzac, in charge of a crackdown on tax fraud in France, had held a secret bank account abroad for two decades. Michel Deléan and Fabrice Arfi report on the hearings.
Close to the end of a two-week trial, the prosecutor demanded that Jérôme Cahuzac, who was exposed by Mediapart for holding a tax-evading bank account abroad, be also barred from elected office for five years and that his wife be sentenced to two years in jail.
A French judicial investigation has described the “active role” played by Arnaud Claude, the partner of Nicolas Sarkozy in a Paris legal firm, Claude & Sarkozy, in helping an MP and longstanding political ally of the former French president, Patrick Balkany, to conceal from the French tax authorities his ownership of a luxurious Moroccan villa estimated to be worth more than 5 million euros. As the investigation draws to a close, the magistrates in charge have ordered the confiscation of a Normandy property belonging to the lawyer, Mediapart has learned. Fabrice Arfi and Mathilde Mathieu report.
The trial of the 63-year-old, who Mediapart revealed held a secret tax-dodging account in Switzerland for more than 20 years, opened in Paris on Monday.
The Paris public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into a suspected money laundering operation involving Qatari Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani’s French investment arm, French Properties Management (FPM), Mediapart can reveal. The probe, prompted by information from a whistleblowing former employee of FPM, is the latest to target the activities of the Paris-based firm, which is also cited in two other separate judicial investigations in France for “misuse of company assets” and “corruption and influence peddling”. Yann Philippin reports.
One of the world’s most prominent art dealers, Guy Wildenstein, is to stand trial in Paris next month on charges of tax fraud and money laundering. The case centres on undeclared assets from the estate of his late father Daniel Wildenstein, for which Guy Wildenstein and other members of his family have received a record tax adjustment totalling 550 million euros. Mediapart has gained access to the judicial document detailing the case for the trial, and which reveals the staggering sums involved and the complex offshore structures that hid, among other assets, a stash of prized artworks. Laurent Mauduit reports.
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