French justice investigates Altice group on suspicion of corruption

French authorities have launched an investigation into telecoms group Altice over suspicions of corruption, similar to what happened in Portugal, according to AFP.

An investigation was opened by the judicial body Parquet National Financier (PNF), which deals with major economic crimes, in September 2023 into bribery of persons not performing public functions, money laundering and the concealment of these crimes.

This became known after the arrest by Portuguese authorities of Armando Pereira, the right hand of French businessman Patrick Drai, owner of Altice, a source told AFP.

In Portugal, this process is at stake due to “bias in the decision-making of the Altice group regarding the award of contracts, as well as harmful practices on the part of the group’s own companies and competition”, which point to private corruption in active and passive forms and tax crimes fraud and money laundering.

Investigators suspect that more than 100 million euros may have been stolen from the state at a financial level.

The investigation also points to the existence of evidence of “abuse of the reduced taxation applied to IRC in the Madeira Free Zone” through the fictitious tax domicile of people and companies. The MP also understands that offshore companies were also used, which indicates crimes of money laundering and document forgery.

This month, the Lisbon Court of Appeal (TRL) overturned Judge Carlos Alexandre’s decision in the Operation Picoas case to lift the coercive measures against defendant Armando Pereira, invalidating the decision because it was not properly justified. .

We are talking about the order of the investigating judge who ordered the implementation of coercive measures in the case of Operation Picoas (investigating the activities of the Altice group) of July 2023 and ordered the house arrest of Armando Pereira, which was later replaced by the payment of bail. in the amount of 10 million euros, which, after payment at the end of October 2023, allowed the defendant to move freely.

On July 13, the deputy launched an operation that carried out approximately 90 house searches, resulting in the arrests of Armando Pereira, Hernani Vaz Antunes, Jessica Antunes (the daughter of the right-hand woman of the Altice co-founder) and Alvaro Loureiro, a business administrator (these two last accused were released in July on bail).

Documents and items “such as luxury cars and exclusive models with an estimated value of approximately 20 million euros” were also seized.