Elf oil’s former CEO puts a new spin on the infamous Nigerian Scam.
Perhaps more than any other public figure in France, including politicians elect, Loïk Le Floch-Prigent represents the country’s twisted political and financial ties to African heads of state.
In 2003, Loïk Le Floch-Prigent, former CEO of the Elf oil company (now Total oil group), was sentenced to five years in prison for embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars to finance French politicians and pay himself a handsome profit in self-enrichment.
It’s also worth mentioning that prior to that point, Loïk Le Floch-Prigent had already been convicted and jailed in a separate Elf trial, and his lawyers had asked for “leniency, citing a skin disease and bouts of depression.”
If I got arrested twice on criminal charges, I’d have skin problems and depression too.
But the third time’s the charm for countrymen like Loïk Le Floch-Prigent, who has yet another arrest warrant issued in his name, this time for international fraud à la Nigérian. According to a recent Paris Match article, Loïk Le Floch-Prigent has put his own signature twist on the classic Nigerian rip-off scam. In a controversy involving Bertin Agba, Loïk Le Floch-Prigent helped orchestrate a massive scheme to defraud Abbas Yousef, a wealthy businessman from the United Arab Emirates, out of millions of dollars.
Media sources report that Abbas Yousef met with a Nigerian man in a luxury hotel in Dubai who indicated his widowed mother was Awa Mounira, the alleged wife of the late Ivorian President Robert Guéï—and they needed help to recover $275 million from the Central Bank of Togo. Abbas Yousef consulted his former friend Loïk Le Floch-Prigent for counsel, and was advised to engage in the activity. Flash forward: Abbas Yousef was drained of funds in payment totaling north of $48 million.
It seems that when Loïk Le Floch-Prigent is not in jail, he’s in court getting sentenced to jail, or he’s at large in the world wanted by court authorities to—you guessed it—go back to jail. While it’s not exactly the type of accomplishment most Frenchmen seek, Loïk Le Floch-Prigent is swiftly succeeded in winning the race toward “Frenchman with the most multiple arrests in a single lifetime.”
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