He is nicknamed the “Toulouse Madoff”.
Michael Fraysse, a businessman from Albi (Tarn), was arrested by the Colombian authorities on Tuesday December 6, revealed La
Dépêche du Midi
on Monday.
Former manager of the Toulouse investment company CN2i, this man in his forties is suspected of having defrauded 400 families for an amount of 35 million euros.
He would have offered, through his company created in 2006, financial products presented as very attractive, on solar power plants for example, to a panel of investors, including retirees.
However, these goods either did not exist or were greatly overvalued.
Victims in several countries
Fraysse would then have used the new investors' money to pay off the old ones, and so on.
In 2020, investors becoming rarer due to the recession, the bubble would then have burst, forcing the businessman to announce to his investors that he could no longer pay them returns.
If the scammed households are mainly French, the "Toulouse Madoff" would also have victims in Spain, Austria and Germany.
The Occitan entrepreneur would then have closed his bank accounts and embezzled 25 to 35 million euros via tax havens, before evaporating.
An international arrest warrant had been issued against Michael Fraysse by the investigating judge of the JIRS (specialized interregional jurisdiction) of Bordeaux, in charge of the case.
The fugitive was also under a red notice issued by Interpol.
The financial section of the judicial police (PJ) of Toulouse as well as Europol investigators tracked the Albigensian for almost a year before finding his trace in Colombia, says the Dépêche
du Midi.
He should be extradited soon to France.