Managing Director of a then flourishing company in Neuilly-sur-Seine, comfortable income, balanced family life, wealth manager Olivier M. apparently lacked nothing.
Today, the money is lacking, he has not worked for years, does not see a future.
This 50-year-old man got lost in dizzying financial shenanigans, for which he is now answerable in court.
Judged this Thursday in Nanterre by the criminal court, he also risks losing freedom.
It must be said that Marion Camaro, the prosecutor at the hearing, did not do it gently: four years of imprisonment including one year suspended, she requested.
In addition to a fine ... one million euros.
What intrigues in this business of big money, in which the asset manager would have misappropriated no less than 4 million euros, it is his "credulity".
Convinced of having raised a case so juicy that it would have brought him some $ 9 million in commission, he persisted in this story which, according to his lawyer, Me Grégory Doranges, would only be a "fraud in 'African'.
Money passing through offshore companies
Basically, to get the commission, you had to put to the pot first.
Olivier M. did it… by diverting his company's funds to pass them through offshore companies before the money landed in the pockets of who knows who.
At the end of the 2000s, a "friend" of Olivier M., "a Beninese diplomat stationed in Paris, reconverted his career in petroleum products and the import-export of finished products," said the defendant at the helm.
With a partner, whose family is "close to Nigerian power", the friend signs a contract for 189 million dollars with the oil company of the State of Nigeria.
Then the friend turns to Olivier M.
“The contract was never paid.
He tells me he is in a dire situation because of this non-payment.
According to the account of the accused, the two men agree: Olivier, who has connections in Africa, will intervene to recover the debt.
At stake: the 9 million commission.
“First, it was necessary to purge a tax dispute at 3 million dollars and pay the taxes”, details the defendant at the bar.
He even goes so far as to use his personal savings
At first, he releases a few hundred thousand euros from his personal savings.
It's not enough.
So he gives transfer orders from his company to an English company which then takes care of sending the money to offshore companies.
For some 3 million euros.
And also pump in the fund of the investment company he owns, up to 700,000 euros.
These transfers are cleverly "made up" to go unnoticed.
But now, Olivier M. also used a friend's money.
Three hundred thousand euros that she had to invest for an attractive investment.
It was through her that the case emerged.
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Civil party to the lawsuit, the slender fifty-something told that after having perceived a substantial family inheritance, she entrusted Olivier with the care of placing 800,000 euros in life insurance and stock savings plan.
"I trusted"
There remained 300,000 euros in her bank account which she reserved for the purchase of an apartment.
“I wasn't looking to invest this money.
He offered me an 8% return over three months.
I had no worries, he was a friend of my husband's college, I had known him for twenty years, he was managing director, said he had worked at Rothschild.
I had confidence.
Olivier M. was also the wedding witness of this woman and her college friend.
He is also the godfather of their son.
On the advice of the asset manager, the cheated friend therefore transferred 300,000 euros to the English company at the heart of operations.
“What he hadn't planned was that I was going to find an apartment so quickly.
I asked for the money, it went from lie to lie.
The funds had landed in a bank in Florida, then in Hong Kong, explained the wealth manager to save time.
In fact, the investigation led to their trace in Dubai, where the money was withdrawn in cash.
The victim alerts the Autorité des marchés financiers
Realizing the confusion, the deceived friend turned to the Autorité des marchés financiers which brought to light some of the shenanigans.
Investigators from the financial squad did the rest, until they arrested Olivier M. at the end of 2014. Not very successful abroad, the investigations were however long.
"I put my finger in a gear, it's a kind of headlong flight, I tried to get out of it", justified the defendant, who recognized the embezzlement, the bills tweaked to hide certain operations.
But is offended that he is accused of money laundering operations. “He firmly believes in this debt of 189 million dollars, insisted Me Grégory Doranges. In his reasoning, which perhaps has no reasoning except the name, he was going to have it. And even, he still believes in it. The prosecutor, she does not believe in the credulity of the accused. Thus it partly justifies the severity of its requisitions. The court will deliver its decision on March 26.
