Masked man posed as politician in €50m scam
Seven men have gone on trial in Paris for using a silicone mask to impersonate the French foreign minister and extort €50 million from wealthy public figures including the Aga Khan.
The two main suspected fraudsters are accused of usurping the identity of JeanYves Le Drian to target 150 VIPs, from the owner of renowned wine estate Chateau Margaux to the president of Senegal.
Anthony Lasarevitsch, 35, and Gilbert Chikli, 54, are being tried as the masterminds. Five others face lesser complicity charges.
The hustle, in 2015-16, required targets to think they were being asked by Le Drian, who was defence minister at the time, for help in paying ransoms for journalists held by Islamists in the Middle East. The fake Le Drian said their payments would be untraceable, since officially France does not pay ransoms.
Most of the targets smelled a rat, but three took the bait.
Previous French reports said that Corinne Mentzelopoulos, owner of chateau Margaux, handed over €6m. Prosecutors said the Aga Khan, spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims, made five transfers totalling €20m. Three payments were frozen, but €7.7m vanished.
Inan Kirac, a Turkish business magnate, was allegedly convinced to wire US$47 million.
The targets were reeled in gradually, receiving initial phone calls from someone claiming to be a member of Le Drian’s inner circle. They would later get to talk to the ‘‘minister’’ in a carefully staged Skype call in which the Le Drian impostor sat in a perfect mock-up of the minister’s office.
Senegalese leader Macky Sall saw through the hoax when the fake Le Drian addressed him with the more formal French ‘‘vous’’. The two men know each other well and use the informal ‘‘tu’’.
Chikli and Lasarevitsch deny the charges. Police say that on the pair’s phones, they found pictures of a silicone mask of Prince Albert II of Monaco, suggesting he may have been next on the list.
In 2015, a French court jailed Chikli for seven years for similar scams in 2005 and 2006, in which he posed as business chief executives.