According to the “PANAMA PAPERS”, MOHAMED REDA MEZIANE, THE SON OF THE FORMER CEO OF THE PETROLEUM COMPANY, HID MONEY IN SWITZERLAND.
If the trial of the so-called “Sonatrach I” case, which took place from December 2015 to February 2016 in the criminal court of Algiers, did not shed all light around one of the accused, Mohamed Reda Meziane , New information sheds light on the shadowy areas that remained on the financial heritage of the son of Mohamed Meziane, the former CEO of the Algerian public oil company.
The 45-year-old had been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment – served in pre-trial detention – and fined 2 million dinars (about 16,700 euros) for corruption and money laundering, but the investigation was not Failed to identify all the property and money allegedly badly acquired by the accused. According to documents obtained as part of the “Panama Papers” project, it appears that Mohamed Reda Meziane was able to hide at least one account in Switzerland from the judicial police and the investigating magistrates.
Read also: In Algeria, former executives of the oil group Sonatrach sentenced
The facts date back to 2000, when the financial upturn caused by soaring oil prices had enabled the Algerian state to launch major public investment programs, giving rise to corruption. This case and, later, the “Sonatrach II” inquiry opened in Milan, Italy, revealed part of the system set up by officials of the Algerian Ministry of Energy and Sonatrach management to receive commissions On the contracts binding the national airline.
An empty shell in the British Virgin Islands
During his hearing by the investigating judge, Mohamed Reda Meziane stated that he had three accounts in three different banks (Barclays, Crédit Lyonnais and Crédit Agricole) in Paris and that he had sold his Paris apartment to Her two children born of a first marriage with a Frenchwoman. However, documents obtained from the “Panama Papers” project, led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) with more than 100 editors (including Le Monde), show that in December 2008 Mr. Meziane opened Another account, in a Genevan branch of Credit Suisse this time, through the trust company Junod, Muhlstein, Lévy & Puder (JMLP). In the Swiss credit books, Mohamed Reda Meziane’s customer information file is listed under number 153729.
That’s not all. According to the documents obtained by the “Panama Papers” project, JMLP has used the services of the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca to hide the empty shell account in the British Virgin Islands, Jaxia Associates Inc. This offshore company, dissolved in April 2010 When Mohamed Reda Meziane was in prison as part of the investigation, was administered as of December 2008 by another screen company, Capfid Management Services SA, Panamanian one, and registered under the names of the asset managers of the company WPFD.
“Because of our professional secrecy, we are not in a position to answer your questions. The facts on which you base yourself are inaccurate and your deductions incorrect. Our business has always been perfectly in line with the laws and regulations of our profession. You will respond to any damage you may cause by publishing information that would call us into question, “replied Michel Muhlstein of JMLP by email.
From 2006 to 2009, fictitious contracts
At the time of the opening of this account at Crédit Suisse, Mohamed Reda Meziane was bound by a consulting contract with Saipem Contracting Algérie, a local subsidiary of the Italian energy giant ENI, ordered in the “Sonatrach I” case to a fine of 4 Million dinars (EUR 33 300) for ‘price increases by taking advantage of the authority and influence of the agents of an industrial and commercial establishment’. Under the terms of the contract, Mr. Meziane was required, inter alia, to inform the company of Sonatrach’s projects in civilian oil and gas engineering and to provide him with data that could assist him in the preparation of technical and commercial offers. The investigation concluded that the contracts between Mr. Meziane and Saipem from 2006 to 2009 were fictitious. According to the investigating magistrate, there was no record of this collaboration in the company’s archives, apart from receipts for payment of his fees.
In the “Sonatrach I” case, Mohamed Reda Meziane was also prosecuted, along with his father, Mohamed Meziane, and his brother, Bachir Faouzi Meziane, for the role played in the award to the German-Algerian group Contel- Funkwerk of five public orders to equip the Sonatrach facilities with a monitoring system, for a total of 11 billion dinars. In 2008, he had received one-fifth of the shares in Contel Algeria, which he had then transferred to the company’s owner, Mohamed Reda Djaafar Al-Ismail, for an amount of 1.2 million euros Of dinars.
It was this same Mohamed Reda Djaafar Al-Ismail who had financed the acquisition in November 2008, for an amount of 650 000 euros, of a five-room apartment located rue de Bagatelle in Neuilly-sur-Seine (Hauts- De-Seine), on behalf of Koucem Djerroud, the deceased mother of Mohamed Reda Meziane. The arguments of the latter, claiming that his association with Mr. Al-Ismail was legally established, had not convinced the court that the boss of Contel Algeria and his German partners had benefited from the influence of Mohamed Reda Meziane and his father to win the telemonitoring markets and that the money received by Mr. Meziane was undue compensation.
Appeals were lodged by the nine persons convicted in this case, as well as by the public prosecutor’s office, whose appeal concerns the acquittals pronounced against seven accused and the suspension granted to the former CEO of Sonatrach. The case is pending before the Supreme Court.
