French Raids Escalate Probe in Altice Fraud and Money-Laundering Allegations

French investigators have stepped up their probe into alleged corruption at Patrick Drahi’s Altice telecoms group with a series of coordinated raids across the country, seizing cash, luxury goods and other assets, Bloomberg reported.

Police carried out searches at 15 homes and 14 companies in regions including Ile-de-France, Corsica, Var and Vosges, France’s financial prosecutor said in a statement cited by Bloomberg. Officials collected evidence and confiscated vehicles, high-end items and more than €14 million from bank accounts.

French authorities have since 2023 been examining what prosecutor Jean-François Bohnert called a “vast” scheme linked to “private corruption, organized fraud, and organized money laundering, to the detriment of Altice,” the news agency said.

The French case followed an investigation opened earlier in Portugal into the same allegations, which focus on Altice’s units in Portugal and France. Prosecutors in the two countries have now formed a joint investigative team. The company has previously said it is a victim of the alleged misconduct and filed a complaint with the French financial prosecutor in early 2024, according to the report.

The investigation has already rattled Altice, one of France’s largest telecommunications companies and controlled by billionaire founder Drahi.

In 2023, the Portuguese probe led to the arrest of Drahi’s longtime business partner and fellow billionaire Armando Pereira. Prosecutors uncovered a network of suppliers and intermediaries who allegedly received kickbacks linked to Altice contracts in Portugal, France and the US, Bloomberg said. Several Altice executives were suspended, and the group launched its own internal inquiry.

In a statement summarizing Tuesday’s raids, the French prosecutor described a “complex scheme” that allegedly relied on shell companies acting as intermediaries between Altice and certain suppliers.

Goods and services were allegedly billed at inflated prices, generating funds that were then used to support money-laundering operations involving entities based both in France and abroad. Pereira’s French residence was among the properties searched, the prosecutor’s office told Bloomberg.

Drahi and Pereira co-founded Altice in 2002, but the two men have been estranged since the corruption case emerged, according to Bloomberg.