William Oakes, brother of the former boss of the Alpine stable Oliver Oakes and director of Hitech Grand Prix, was arrested last week and accused of transferring criminal goods. A 31-year-old, he was arrested on Thursday May 2 in the Silverstone Park region, in Northampothire, in the United Kingdom, reports The Telegraph newspaper. He was then charged with the transfer of criminal goods by the police.
William Oakes would have been arrested in possession of a “Important sum of liquid money”said a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police at Telegraph. After his arrest, he appeared before the Northampton court on Saturday May 3 and was placed in pre -trial detention.
Less than a week after the arrest of his brother, Oliver Oakes resigned from his post as director of the Alpine Formula 1 team. Following this resignation, the executive director of the stable, Flavio Briatore, tried to deny the rumors of dissension within the French team.
“Many things have been said these last 24 hours, erroneously linking Oli’s decision to resign to a suspicion of disagreement, or of divergences from point of view that we would share”said Flavio Briatore in a joint Instagram post. “It is completely false and very far from the truth.”
“Oli and I have very good relations and long -term ambitions to lead this team together. We respect Oli’s request to resign and we have therefore accepted it. The reasons are not linked to the team and are personal.”
William Oakes appears on the British company register as director of Hitech Grand Prix, a structure also founded by his brother Oliver.
Since March 2022, Williams has also been one of the leaders of Hitech Global Holdings Ltd, a new company created by Oliver, who had acquired majority participation in the structure with the father of the former F1 pilot Nikita Mazepin, the oligarch Dmitry Mazepin. The acquisition of the shares of Dmitry Mazepin in the team intervened only three days after the Russian, close to Vladimir Putin, was sanctioned by the British government following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
Alpine did not comment on the arrest of William Oakes, believing that she did not concern the Formula 1 stable.
