indignation" in the face of "illegitimate persecution," according to
the Parisian daily Libération, after 10 days of executing a search
warrant, the French body aptly called "Office Central pour la
Répression de la Grande Délinquance Financière (OCRGDF)"--central
office for the prosecution of financial high crimes--impounded this
past Thursday "200 m3 of valuables, i.e. the equivalent of three
shipping containers" from the posh 6-story (5 French stories by
discounting the ground floor) private mansion (market value: €500m!)
of 41-year-old Teodorin Obiang aka Prince Teodorin--the son of
Equatorial Guinea's dictator and kleptocrat Teodoro Obiang Nguema,
68--at 42 Avenue Foch in the 16th Arrondissement.
(The massive property has 101 sprawling rooms "complete," according to
The Guardian (Mon 6 Feb 2012), "with disco, spa room, hair salon,
gold- and jewel-encrusted taps, lift, pastel pink dining room and a
breathtaking balcony-view of the Arc de Triomphe." It's rumored that
Teodorin Obiang used to have bacchanalias and orgiastic parties at his
Parisian mansion.)
The impoundment is a major victory for the French section of the
London-based NGO Transparency International and other watchdog groups
that sued in Paris in 2008 three African autocrats (and their family
members) whose official salaries couldn't justify their real estate
portfolios and princely lifestyles in France: Teodoro Obiang Nguema
Mbasogo; Congo-Brazzaville's Denis Sassou-Nguesso; and Gabon's late
president Omar Bongo and its current leader Ali Bongo... At the
beginning of the case, French government lawyers attempted to have the
case thrown out of court for lack of merits. (Little wonder then that
a few years back the Angolan government decreed that Transparency
International investigators were to be arrested and treated as spies
from hostile intelligence agencies!)
Two of the above leaders and/or their associates (who more often than
not are also the keplocrats' own family members) were mentioned in the
2010 U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the
Committee on Homeland and Security report on financial malfeasance by
African leaders and referred therein as "Obiang Case Study" and "Bongo
Case Study." And late last year, the US was seeking to seize $70m of
ill-gotten monies and properties from Teodorin Obiang--including a
$38.5m Malibu mansion.
The seized valuables at Teodorin Obiang's Paris mansion shows the
mind-boggling profligacy and callousness of these nefarious characters
when their fellow citizens wallow in subhuman squalor. Item: a €3m
clock! Item: cases of bottles of vintage wine costing several
thousands of dollars a bottle (such as Petrus, romanée-conti, etc.).
Missing item: a Claude Monet painting bought €12 m among the 107 other
paintings bought by Teodorin at the auction of the private art
collection of the late famous French designer Yves Saint-Laurent!
Teodorin's "fleet of (...) turbo-charged, yellow, red and blue" (The
Guardian) Ferraris, Bugattis, Maseratis, Porsches, etc., were already
impounded last September and in mid-February of this year.
(Well, this madness just proves the point I made a while back on this
blog in support of British soldier-of-fortune Simon Mann, whom I
called a "Picaresque Saint," who wanted to put out of their misery
Teodorin, his father, and the rest of that cretinous family.)
Next in line for this kind of shameful public display in Paris
featuring pathological impulse buying spree will certainly be
Congo-Brazzaville's Denis Sassou-Nguesso.
Sassou-Nguesso's main foible is to dress smart and expensive--just
like the best of the "sapeurs" from both river banks of the Congo
River (Brazzaville and Kinshasa).
According to The Guardian article quoted above, Sassou-Nguesso is
dressed by Senegalese designer Pape Ibrahima N'Diaye aka Monsieur
Pape--"a Paris institution." The Guardian also refers to the
newly-published book "The Scandal of the Ill-Gotten Gains" by Thomas
Hofnung and Xavier Harel in which "the authors reveal a note by
Tracfin, the French anti-money laundering authority, which states that
in April 2010, Sassou N'Guesso ordered 91 suits from Pape for
€276,000. A month earlier, in March 2010, he had bought 48 shirts for
€24,000. In one year, in the 12 months from November 2009, Sassou
N'Guesso spent more than €652,000 on clothes there."
In Kinshasa, Radio-Trottoir is unimpressed by the move against
Teodorin Obiang by the French Office Central pour la Répression de la
Grande Délinquance Financière (OCRGDF). "They only go after dead
kleptocrats!," people commented. The most outlandish comment I heard
was the following: "France is so desperate and cash-strapped, what
with the current economic crisis, that the French are now going after
the monies of oil-rich African countries!"
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