Illustrative image of the Paris court.

-

ALAIN JOCARD / AFP

  • A report was made to the Paris prosecutor's office by a former escort who accuses a businessman of having instigated a "kompromat", a practice aimed at blackmailing a target with compromising information.

  • She attached a clandestine recording to her report.

  • The lawyer for the businessman considers that these are "far-fetched" and "incredible" accusations.

It is a scenario worthy of a thriller, a “kompromat” project that the KGB would not have had to blush.

According to our information, a former escort girl made a report this Friday to the Paris prosecutor's office, claiming to have been mandated by a Swiss art dealer, Yves Bouvier, to trap a tax agent who was investigating him.

To support his remarks, Sarah * has attached the recording of a conversation captured without the latter's knowledge and in which he reveals the nature of his projects.

Back in September 2017. The multimillionaire Yves Bouvier was then targeted by a vast investigation by the Swiss tax authorities who suspected him of having concealed colossal sums via shell companies: a judgment rendered in the spring by the federal criminal court estimated at some 330 million Swiss francs (a little over 300 million euros) the concealed amount.

To try to derail the investigation, the art dealer would then, according to this report, solicited Sarah, met in 2009 while she was prostituting and with whom he remained in contact.

The role of the young woman was to seduce an officer of the criminal affairs division who was investigating him, to create a procedural flaw.

"I had to bring him to Paris, to an apartment belonging to Yves [Bouvier], and another employee had to photograph him at that time," she

told 20 Minutes

.

An advanced project or a simple joke?

"The Swiss tax authorities have no right to go and investigate abroad," the art dealer explains to him in the recording attached to the report, which we were able to listen to.

He can look on the Internet for what you have abroad, but he cannot go and investigate abroad.

So, if he is in Paris […] or anyone is in contact with me, it is a violation of the investigation he is doing, and the investigation is dead.

"A few minutes later, he clarifies:" I'm going to trap him, I'm going to take pictures of all this but I think I'm not going to use it right away, I'm going to put it to safety.

"It is totally eccentric, even incredible," said the lawyer for the businessman, Me Philippe Valent.

And to insist: “The jokes I tell at the table are not offenses.

"

According to Sarah's account, a first "approach" took place at the end of September 2017 during a specialized seminar, the Parisian meeting should have taken place at the beginning of 2018. The former escort claims to have changed his mind in mid-November and confessed to the tax agent the plan of which he was, without his knowledge, the main character.

"I had a realization, it went too far this story, I risked prison," she says to justify her turnaround.

To believe her, it is to convince her "target" of the veracity of her words that she decided, a few days later, to record Yves Bouvier without her knowledge.

"In Switzerland, no one listened to me"

The existence of these conversations in which the businessman clearly evokes his intention to "trap" the tax authorities was revealed in February by the Swiss investigative media, Heidi News.

Since then, according to Sarah, nothing has changed.

“In Switzerland, no one listened to me, I wrote to the prosecutor, I said that I had proof of what I was saying but who cares.

Yves Bouvier is too powerful, instead, we prefer to attack me, ”she believes.

The former escort spent 17 months in pre-trial detention between May 2018 and October 2019 for a series of credit card thefts - which she also mentions in the recording.

By this report, she hopes to relaunch the investigation on this side of the Alps since the facts should have been committed, according to her account, in Paris.

"It is also a way for her to protect herself," says her lawyer, Me Yassine Bouzrou.

She wants to prove that she did not take part in this trap and that on the contrary, she did everything to prevent it.

For Yves Bouvier's lawyer, if this information was not used by the Swiss authorities, it is because it is not credible.

And the advice to sweep away an alleged immunity of the businessman, recalling that he is the subject of several investigations.

* The first name has been changed at the request of the person concerned

Miscellaneous

Hautes-Pyrénées: Swindled by a fake escort-girl, he tries to be reimbursed by his bank

Society

"I thought I was dead" ... Ultra-violent assault of a young escort-girl by a client

  • Paris

  • Blackmail

  • Prostitute

  • Society

  • Swiss

  • Tax evasion