A restaurant manager was sentenced on Tuesday June 28, by the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal, to seven years in prison for having embezzled more than 400,000 euros in partial unemployment benefits linked to Covid.
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Sentenced in November 2021 by the Marseille Criminal Court to five years in prison, the appeal judges increased the sentence of Bassam Ghazouani, 39, and confirmed a permanent ban on managing a company.
During online requests for partial unemployment benefits for three fictitious companies, Bassam Ghazouani had provided the bank details of the restaurant in Cassis (Bouches-du-Rhône) in which he was director and which was in receivership as well as of a small Marseille garage, accomplice.
Sentenced six times
The Court of Appeal observes that Bassam Ghazouani took advantage of the lack of control by the administration "
given the number of requests made in a context of health emergency
", concerning 8.4 million employees.
Part of the sums paid by the Service and Payment Agency had been transferred to personal accounts of Bassam Ghazouani in Belgium and Germany and then redirected to accounts in Morocco.
The alert had been given by Tracfin (agency for intelligence processing and action against clandestine financial circuits) following bank movements abroad.
Sentenced at first instance to a criminal fine of 60,000 euros, the company managing the Cassis restaurant saw its sentence confirmed.
The Court of Appeal upheld the recidivism since Bassam Ghazouani committed these acts, in 2020, when he had benefited from the adjustment of a two-year prison sentence for complicity in fraud.
He has already been convicted six times for similar offences.
"
Accountant by training
", writes the court in its judgment, "
Bassam Ghazouani put his skills in financial matters at the service of this team in order to divert this aid (...) intended for professionals in the context of a pandemic and almost total shutdown of the national economy
”.
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The mechanic had not appealed and had been sentenced to six months in prison to be served under the regime of electronic home surveillance and a fine of 5,000 euros.
The defendants were also ordered to reimburse the Service and Payment Agency the sum of 394,296 euros.
On the other hand, the court overturned for legal reasons the confiscation of the sums present in the Moroccan bank accounts of Bassam Ghazouani.