BNP Paribas, indicted on May 11 for laundering "at least 35 million euros" with which the Bongo family acquired villas and mansions in France, recognized "deficiencies" but contested everything " fraudulent design ”, according to his questioning before the judge consulted by AFP.

Faced with the magistrate of the financial center of the Paris court, the representative of the bank maintained that the establishment was not aware that the Bongo family "was pulling the strings" of the financial circuit and was unaware that the money came from potential embezzlement. Gabonese public funds, denouncing an "intellectual construction" of the accusation.

" Incomprehension "

This questioning of the leading French and European bank has taken a decisive step forward in this long so-called “ill-gotten property” instruction which, since 2010, has focused in particular on the luxurious real estate assets acquired by the family of Omar Bongo, president. from Gabon from 1967 until his death in 2009 and succeeded by his son Ali.

If no member of the family, who disputes any embezzlement, has so far been indicted, BNP Paribas is now being prosecuted for acts of "laundering, corruption and embezzlement of public funds" in connection with the clan. Bongo.

In detail, the examining magistrate Dominique Blanc suspects the bank of having allowed the Bongo family and his relatives, via a company called Atelier 74, to "convert funds of tort into real estate transactions, up to of at least 35 million euros ”which would have benefited them“ directly or via structures ”.

All between 1996 and 2008.

But before the magistrate, the legal director of the Georges Dirani group said his "incomprehension".

For him, the BNP "actively and transparently helped the justice system to clarify a certain number of facts", in particular via an internal investigation of 2017.


This one "concluded that the account of Atelier 74 had been, there is more than 10 years old, an atypical functioning, highlighting certain deficiencies ”.

This "does not constitute criminal offenses," insisted Georges Dirani.

Twelve real estate

Atelier 74, an interior decoration company, was in charge of unearthing goods for the Gabonese president's family and renovating them for several million euros.


French justice suspects the company of having received, on its accounts at BNP, money from its Africa subsidiary, via an account at BGFI, a Gabonese bank.

This account received “very large numbers of cash deposits made by Omar Bongo and his relatives”.

For the judge, BNP Paribas should have "classified" as "sensitive" the "known business link" between Atelier 74 and Omar Bongo, noted that "the volume of cash was unrelated to the president's emoluments" and " came from embezzlement of public funds and acts of corruption ”.

But the bank's legal director strongly minimized the degree of knowledge that BNP had of the origin and destination of funds deposited with BGFI, a bank long linked to Paribas, until 1998. According to Georges Dirani, “nothing establishes "that the BNP" would have been informed during the period (…) that the Bongo family was pulling the strings behind Atelier 74 ".

Astonishment of the investigators

Finally, the BNP denies having known that the bank checks that it established in France for Atelier 74 could be used "for the Bongo family (to) acquire real estate", far beyond simple interior decoration services. In the Gabonese shutter of this resounding affair, which is also interested in the patrimony of the family of Denis Sassou Nguesso, president of Congo-Brazzaville, the investigators identified twelve real estate acquired in Paris and Nice by the Bongo clan "at height of at least 35 million euros ”from the 1990s.

Among this heritage: two mansions in upscale districts of Paris as well as a villa in Nice.

"It is difficult to believe that the bank at this period did not ask for proof of transfer: origin of funds, the existence of contract or agreement between these two entities", estimated the Central Office of Repression of the major financial delinquency in a September note.

The internal investigation of the BNP which ended up pointing out the breaches dates from 2017, six years after the first judicial requisitions, the OCRGDF was surprised.

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  • Justice

  • Bank

  • Gabon

  • BNP Paribas

  • Ali bongo

  • Omar bongo