Two serving French police officers have been placed under formal investigation and ordered held in pretrial detention on suspicion of providing confidential police information to an international money-laundering network implicated in a case involving rapper Gims and a Marrakech-based businessman, Le Monde and RCI reported.
The arrests widen an investigation that had previously focused on suspected laundering, drug proceeds and commercial transactions into an examination of possible corruption inside the French police.
The officers were placed under formal investigation on June 11 and June 15 on suspicion of corruption and related offences, according to Le Monde.
Lahoucine Aourik Soussi, a Franco-Moroccan businessman, has been named by French investigators as the head of the network, which is suspected of laundering 319 million euros between 2019 and 2025 alone. Soussi has not been formally charged by French investigators and contests any involvement.
The main officer, identified as Johnny B., was a brigadier-chef serving in a narcotics unit in Martinique. According to RCI and Le Monde, he admitted to making at least 194 suspicious database searches, charging 500 euros per query, and receiving nearly 200,000 euros through cash, cryptocurrency, and bank transfers linked to the network. A second officer, identified as Ryad A., admitted to similar acts. Both are now in custody in Paris.
The searches included prominent suspected drug traffickers, members of Marseille’s DZ Mafia and figures linked to the La Castellane network.
French investigators describe the wider operation as an industrial-scale laundering system suspected of processing €319 million between 2019 and 2025 and more than €1 billion over roughly a decade.
The network allegedly matched cash generated by drug trafficking and other crimes with bank transfers requested by businesses. False invoices were then used to give the transfers an apparently legitimate commercial basis, with funds routed through shell companies abroad, including in the Middle East.
The investigation also led to the formal indictment of Congolese-French singer Gims in March for aggravated money laundering in an organised criminal network, a charge he denies.
French investigators have examined financial flows connected to a luxury property development promoted using Gims’ image near Marrakech. The project, known as Sunset Village Private Residences, was presented as a development of 117 villas surrounding an artificial lagoon, with potential sales estimated at about €100 million.
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