A trial linked to the Dubaï Papers case opens on Monday, 2 November, at the 32nd correctional chamber of the Paris judicial court and is expected to last a month. Nine officials from the firm Hélin International, three lawyers and a French accountant are facing judgment, according to the Parquet national financier (PNF).
The PNF accuses the firm and its leaders of organizing large-scale tax fraud for 322 French taxpayers, enabling them to hide more than €200 million from the tax authorities through sophisticated arrangements involving tax havens known for their opacity. The prosecution characterizes the alleged offences as complicity in aggravated tax fraud, aggravated money laundering and criminal association.
According to the account given by Hélin International's leader, Belgian Prince Henri de Croÿ, the firm officially offered clients—mostly French people facing a “tax situation”—“optimization structures with a high degree of confidentiality” intended to let them “defer tax.” Clients were recruited through “apporteurs d’affaires,” and benefited from a system for making money available to meet their “liquidity needs.”
In criminal terms, prosecutors say the firm's core activity involved a system for distributing cash envelopes and preloaded anonymous bank cards to clients in France. Among those accused of acting as recruiters are three Paris lawyers and an accountant from northern France, who are also to be tried for complicity in tax fraud, organized money laundering and criminal association.
The PNF built its case on a USB key that arrived anonymously in early 2019 and contained hundreds of thousands of internal documents from the Hélin International group, offering a rare view inside a system normally shielded from scrutiny. Months earlier, the same data had been sent to the weekly L’Obs, which revealed the scheme in collaboration with Radio France under the name “Dubaï Papers,” after the emirate from which Hélin International had operated since 2009. The prosecution describes the structure as pyramid-shaped.
Sources: Le Monde Économie.