Four people were arrested following a police operation targeting several sites of a Belgian construction company, as part of an investigation into corruption of a foreign public official and misuse of corporate assets.
Suspicions of corruption surrounding the construction of a hotel in the Chadian capital N’Djamena led to searches in Belgium and France on Wednesday, in an investigation targeting executives and managers of a Belgian construction company, a source close to the investigation told AFP.
There were six searches in Belgium and four in France targeting the same company, CFE, owned by the listed Belgian group Ackermans & van Haaren (AvH), and several of its executives at their private homes. Following the police raids in Belgium, four people were arrested for questioning, including the chairman of the board of directors of AvH Luc Bertrand, the same source said, confirming information from the French media outlet Mediapart and Belgian newspapers. The evening et The Standard.
The Brussels judge leading the investigation will then have to decide on a possible indictment or even imprisonment, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office stressed.
A person interviewed in France
In France, at least one person is being questioned: Michel Marstal, who had reported the situation to the courts, according to a source close to the case. He was also searched. “My client is extremely surprised by this search. He has nothing to reproach himself for, and it was he who reported the facts on his own initiative to the French and Belgian courts.”his lawyer Fabrice Delinde responded to AFP.
The lawyer also assured that his client had alerted, in 2019, the management of CFE, of the AVH group, then in 2020 the Chadian Minister of Finance Tahir Nguilin, without“none” did not follow up. His report to the courts led to the opening of a preliminary investigation by the French National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) last May, as well as investigations carried out on the Belgian side.
Ces investigations portent “on suspicions of (acts of) corruption likely to have been committed by the company CFE and some of its Belgian and French representatives in connection with the construction of the Grand Hotel in N’Djamena, Chad, and the recovery of the debt arising therefrom, which is still owed by Chad to CFE”according to French and Belgian authorities.
Specifically, the investigation was opened for corruption of a foreign public official, complicity in active influence peddling, forgery and use, misuse of corporate assets, money laundering by an organized gang, receiving stolen goods and criminal association, according to a judicial source in Paris.
A bill never paid
The construction of this mega-hotel – managed by the Radisson Blu chain – was decided under the presidency of Idriss Déby Itno, president of Chad for more than 30 years, killed in 2021 by rebels during a military operation. The establishment was inaugurated in 2017, but the full bill has never been paid. Chad still owes several tens of millions of euros to CFE, according to several media outlets. In its press release, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office did not specify the financial amounts.
In Belgium, the searches were carried out in the Brussels municipalities of Auderghem – where CFE has its headquarters -, Ixelles and Woluwe-Saint-Pierre (two) as well as in Lasne and Hoeilaart, in Brabant, in the centre of the country. In France, they targeted the homes of four people in the Paris region, in Eure (north-west) and in Vienne (centre-west), according to the judicial source.
According to Mediapart, investigators from both countries should also be interested “for the use of some 12 million euros withdrawn in cash from the CFE account held in the Chadian subsidiary of Société Générale (a subsidiary sold by the French bank in early 2024).” According to a second source close to the case to AFP, Société Générale was not targeted by the searches on Wednesday.
