Did Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff try to despoil a depressed millionaire to settle their financial woes and relaunch "Temps X", the science fiction show that made them famous in the 80s? The Paris public prosecutor's office requests their removal to correctional.
It is now up to the investigating judge to decide whether or not to prosecute the 70-year-old twins and a son of a Franco-Congolese diplomat, Tanguy Ifoku, whom the prosecution wants to see tried together for "scam on a vulnerable person". In its indictment of March 26, the prosecution accuses the twins of having placed Cyrille P. "under control" to involve him in "chimerical projects". This wealthy former hotelier, suffering from a manic-depressive psychosis, committed suicide at the age of 53, from the cliffs of Etretat, on August 31, 2018, at the height of the investigation. Two months earlier, Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff were placed in police custody and indicted in this case, less than a year after their meeting with Cyrille P.
Their counsels denounce a "hasty" instruction
The twins, known for their extraordinary physical transformation and their controversial popular science books, "contest any scam towards their friend, there was no enrichment", reacted their lawyers, Me Edouard de Lamaze and Eric Morain. These councils denounce an instruction "precipitated" and target Mr. Ifoku, "responsible" for the scam in their eyes and "now on the run" because the justice "gave him his passport". Mr. Ifoku has been the subject of an arrest warrant since December.
At the end of the investigations, the public prosecutor retains, however, a series of suspicious projects in which Cyrille P. wanted to invest 1.5 million euros in a few weeks, during the winter of 2017-2018. For the accusation, the three men are aware of manipulating Cyrille P.: "I spoke with him yesterday to keep him in this state (…) it would be a good way to reset him", tells Grischka to his brother on the phone .
Checks blocked
In financial difficulties, Igor convinces their new friend to buy him, in joint possession and without being able to settle there, half of his Parisian villa, for 750,000 euros. Cyrille P. consents to everything and signs the million and a half euros of checks at the end of December 2017. But none will be cashed: the bank blocks them. At the time, she just reported to justice a circle of potential profiteers, who pushed her client to squander his fortune in artistic projects "more or less serious", notes the prosecution.
Faced with the blocking of checks and the establishment of legal protection for their friend, they believe they have a solution to escape prosecution: obtain "diplomatic passports". Tanguy Ifoku has to do it. But after more than six months, and 160,000 euros in cash largely absorbed by the Franco-Congolese, Cyrille P. and the twins will have obtained "nothing more than an appointment, by a minister of the DRC known for his corruption, like "Unesco scientific consultants".
Society
The producer that the Bogdanoff brothers are suspected of having defrauded committed suicide
Society
VIDEO. The Bogdanoff brothers indicted for scam: "We have not received a single euro"
- Justice
- Charged
- Silver
- Fraud