The case began over ten years ago.
The vice-president of Equatorial Guinea Teodorin Obiang was definitively condemned Wednesday by the French justice for having fraudulently constituted a luxurious inheritance in a part of the case of the "ill-gotten gains", after the rejection of his appeal by the Court of cassation.
Teodorin Obiang, 52, was sentenced by the Paris Court of Appeal in February 2020 to three years in prison, a 30 million euro fine and the confiscation of all his property seized for "money laundering social property, embezzlement of public funds and breach of trust ”between 1997 and 2011.
"It's a huge victory, a historic decision that puts an end to 14 years of proceedings," responded Sara Brimbeuf, head of advocacy "illicit financial flows" at Transparency International, civil party in this case.
"With this decision, the French justice confirms that France is no longer a land of welcome for the money embezzled by senior foreign leaders and their entourage", declared in a press release Patrick Lefas, president of the NGO in France.
A 3,000 m² mansion on avenue Foch
This is the first time that a foreign leader has been definitively convicted in France in a case known as “ill-gotten gains”. Investigations into the “ill-gotten gains” of African leaders and their entourage had really started in 2010 on the basis of complaints from the NGOs Sherpa and Transparency International. The aspects concerning the Bongo families in Gabon and Sassou Nguesso in Congo-Brazzaville are still under investigation, and other foreign dignitaries have since been targeted by similar procedures.
Justice estimated at 150 million euros the sums laundered in France by Teodorin Obiang, son of the President of Equatorial Guinea.
In particular, he acquired a private mansion of nearly 3,000 m² on avenue Foch, in one of the most exclusive districts of Paris.
Cinema, hammam, marble and gold taps: the building was estimated at 107 million euros.
Read also Ill-gotten gains: 42, avenue Foch, palace of excess Obiang
Teodorin Obiang being condemned definitively, Equatorial Guinea becomes the first country to benefit from the very last mechanism of restitution of the assets seized in the so-called “ill-gotten property” cases of foreign leaders adopted by France last week.
This system makes it possible to return to the populations the revenue from property confiscated from people definitively condemned for, among other things, money laundering or concealment, instead of being absorbed in the budget of the French State.