2024-03-21 16:17:20
By Le Figaro with AFP
Published 31 minutes ago, Updated now
Our Waldemar SEBASTIEN SALOM-GOMIS / AFP
The boss of FC Nantes as well as his wife for various charges, including that of “aggravated tax fraud”.
The president of FC Nantes, a club playing in Ligue 1, Waldemar Kita was indicted in Paris in July 2022, in particular for aggravated tax fraud, a judicial source indicated on Thursday, confirming information from Actu Nantes.
Mr. Kita and his wife were indicted respectively “on July 7 and 8, 2022, charges of tax fraud, aggravated tax fraud, aggravated money laundering of tax fraud and aggravated money laundering of aggravated tax fraud”, according to this source. The national financial prosecutor’s office opened a preliminary investigation several months after the publication in 2017 of an article in Le Monde citing the name of Mr. Kita in the Panama Papers affair as a shareholder of offshore companies.
He is suspected of having “injured the French tax authorities by 14.8 million euros”
In February 2019, searches took place at the Canaris training center, at the Paris headquarters of Vivacy laboratories, which belong to Mr. Kita, as well as at his home. Then in September 2021, the investigations were entrusted to a judge. According to a December 2020 investigation by Mediapart, Médiacités, Le Soir and De Standaard, citing a court document, the president of FC Nantes is suspected of having “injured the French tax authorities by 14.8 million euros, solely in respect of the wealth solidarity tax (ISF)”.
Waldemar Kita, much criticized by many supporters of the club, “also received, between 2010 and 2019, at least 70 million euros in Luxembourg, on which he paid no income tax in France, since he is a tax resident in Belgium”, also assured these media. Criminal seizures were reportedly made, including Mr. Kita’s Parisian apartment and, temporarily, a yacht belonging to him. The 70-year-old Franco-Polish businessman, who built his fortune on optics and then hyaluronic acid, acquired FC Nantes in 2007. The club also saw his name appear in the context of «Football Leaks»via an article in the Belgian newspaper L’Echo at the end of 2016.
The economic daily indicated that a large part of the club’s shares (more than 99%) was held by a company based in Belgium, a maneuver which would aim to avoid taxes on capital gains made during the sale of the shares. In another case, FC Nantes was indicted on September 21, 2023 as a legal entity represented by its president, Mr. Kita, for complicity in a certain number of irregularities committed by sports agents, within the framework of of an open investigation into suspicious player transfers.
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