Investigations

Le balcon de la maison Gaubert. © dr

Thierry Gaubert, a longstanding friend and aide of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, was in September placed under formal investigation - one step short of being charged - for "aiding and abetting the misuse of company assets" over his role in a suspected political funding scam connected to French weapons sales abroad. In this exclusive report, Mediapart reveals how Gaubert built himself a luxurious, sprawling property (pictured) in Colombia, using funds hidden abroad, where his guest book resembles a list from Who's Who in France. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report from Nilo, Colombia.

L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt has been ordered to pay almost 78 million euros in tax penalties and back payments after hiding part of her estimated 16-billion euro fortune from the French tax authorities, Mediapart can reveal.Fabrice ArfiandMichel Deléan present the details of this record claim by tax inspectors, which followed Mediapart's public exposure of conversations between the billionaire and her senior advisors involving a complex web of secret accounts and property abroad.

R.Bourgi. © Reuters

For decades he has enjoyed close personal and professional relations with French-speaking Africa's most prominent leaders, including notorious despots. Robert Bourgi (photo), dubbed ‘Monsieur Afrique' in France, is an advisor and go-between for both the French presidency and African heads of state. He created a political storm in September after publicly accusing his one-time boss, former President Jacques Chirac, along with former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, of receiving millions of euros in secret cash payments from several African leaders. Mediapart has obtained exclusive access to a statement he gave earlier this month to magistrates in which he details the cash payment claims, including an alleged lunchtime gift to Villepin of one million euros by the president of Equatorial Guinea. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.

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Franco-Lebanese arms dealer Ziad Takieddine is a key figure in what has become known as the ‘Karachi affair', involving alleged secret political funding from commissions paid in French weapons sales abroad. A judge leading an independent probe into the suspected scam last month placed Takieddine and two of President Nicolas Sarkozy's close friends and aides under formal investigation in the case. In a series of investigations that began this summer, Mediapart has revealed Takieddine's unusual role as intermediary and advisor in a number of French weapons sales, and his close relationship with several of President Sarkozy's inner circle of friends and advisors. Documents obtained by Mediapart now disclose how the arms dealer was involved in arranging for the French presidency the services of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to free former hostage Ingrid Betancourt (photo) from her FARC captors in Colombia. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.

Documents obtained by Mediapart show that the head of President Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling UMP party, Jean-François Copé, enjoyed more than what he maintains are purely amicable relations with a key suspect in the illegal political funding investigation in which members of the president's close entourage are implicated. For despite the UMP secretary-general's public claims that he "never had relations of a professional nature" with Ziad Takieddine, Mediapart can reveal that the Paris-based arms dealer paid for a visit for Copé to Lebanon, in which he organized a programme of meetings with the Lebanese prime minister and other senior political and business figures. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.

Amesys, a subsidiary of French IT company Bull, which provided former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi with technology to spy on emails and chat forums, has threatened former employees with legal action in a bid to stop them revealing to the media further details of the deal. In the negotiations to secure the contract, sealed with the Gaddafi regime in 2007, the company, operating under its former name i2e, delivered Tripoli with a sample of its internet spying capabilities in the form of eavesdropped personal messages exchanged by staff at a Paris university. The deal with Libya was one of several brokered by arms dealer and intermediary Ziad Takieddine, and enjoyed the backing of the then-French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.

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Mediapart has obtained new information that further suggests a key suspect in an investigation into the illegal political funding scandal, known as the Karachi Affair, was given confidential details of evidence from the enquiry by one of President Nicolas Sarkozy's closest aides, former interior minister Brice Hortefeux (pictured). The fresh twist in the affair counters earlier statements by Hortefeux denying that he had had illegal access to the investigating file and had passed on secret details of a witness statement to Thierry Gaubert, a former advisor to Sarkozy now placed under formal investigation for suspected embezzlement. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.

A Paris magistrate investigating suspected illegal political party funding in France has obtained documents (photo), extracts of which are exclusively published here by Mediapart, which amount to the most significant evidence yet indicating that former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur's presidential election campaign may have been partly funded via French weapons sales abroad. While the events date from the 1990s, they lie at the heart of what has become known as the Karachi Affair, a fast-developing corruption scandal implicating current French President Nicolas Sarkozy and several of his senior political allies. Fabrice Arfi reports.

A British woman has become the key witness in the ongoing judicial investigation into suspected illegal political funding in France from weapons sales abroad, and which is now engulfing the French presidency in a scandal that threatens Nicolas Sarkozy's future. Mediapart can reveal here exclusive extracts from testimony given to police by Nicola Johnson, who was divorced earlier this month from Paris-based arms dealer Ziad Takieddine, currently under investigation for his role as a principle intermediary in the suspected scam. Her statement details how:

• her former husband established extraordinary close relationships with senior French politicians, including the funding of lavish holidays for ministers.
• Takieddine, who Mediapart has already revealed pays no tax on his 40 million-euro wealth in France where he is fiscally domiciled, apparently escaped a tax control last year after the intervention of a "higher authority".