Ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy was convicted of illegal campaign financing in a failed 2012 re-election bid. He recently appealed the conviction. He was charged last month in a separate witness tampering case relating to alleged Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential win. Sarkozy also faces a separate probe into possible potential influence-peddling.
Marine Le Pen has been charged for this apparent fraud a couple of times before, but usually within a year of the next election. The French Government and the EU leadership do not want a far-right President in France and who knows to what lengths they will go to keep her out?
On the other hand, if she and her party-mates are actually guilty, it could be the end of The National Rally, which, in turn, would mean the end of France as a French entity and it's emergence as a Muslim colony.
French prosecutors order Le Pen to stand trial
in EU funding scandal
French prosecutors on Friday ordered far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen to stand trial over claims she used EU funds to finance party activities in France.
Issued on: Modified:
Marine Le Pen attends a debate on France's sovereignty, nationality, immigration and asylum called by right-wing party 'Les Republicains' at the National Assembly in Paris, December 7, 2023. © Ludovic Marin, AFP
The former presidential candidate will in March be joined by 26 other members of the National Rally (RN) party in the dock, all accused of setting up a system for embezzling EU money to hire staff in France.
The fake jobs inquiry began in 2015, with prosecutors alleging that starting in 2004, National Front eurodeputies including Le Pen took part in the fake jobs scheme.
The accused include Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the co-founder of what became France’s most successful far-right party.
The party itself, as a legal entity, is suspected of receiving illicit funds, and of complicity in fraud.
Marine Le Pen was runner-up to Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections and could have another go in 2027. She was president of her party until 2021, and now leads its parliamentary group.
The charges against her are embezzlement and collusion in fraud.
The decision to go to trial was taken by two investigating magistrates from France’s financial crimes prosecuting unit.
The group is accused of using EU parliamentary funds to pay for assistants who in fact worked for the National Rally party, formerly called the National Front.
Le Pen, who stepped down as an MEP in 2017 after her election to the French parliament, has denied the claims.
The charges carry sentences of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to double the alleged funds embezzled.
If convicted, the court could also declare Le Pen ineligible for office for up to 10 years – threatening her plan to make a fourth run for the French presidency.
The EU Parliament estimated in 2018 that 6.8 million euros ($7.3 million at today’s rates) had been embezzled from 2009 to 2017.
(AFP)
CIBC hit with $1.3M penalty after failing to report
suspicious transactions
The penalty is the second the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada has announced this week after RBC’s $7.4-million fine was publicized on Tuesday.
The agency, known as Fintrac, says it imposed the penalty over CIBC’s failure to submit a suspicious transaction report when there were grounds to suspect it was related to money laundering or terrorist activity, and failures to report information related to large money transfers from outside Canada.
Fintrac tries to pinpoint money linked to illicit activities by electronically sifting through millions of pieces of information each year from banks, insurance companies, money services businesses and others.
It says it found an instance where CIBC didn’t file a suspicious transaction report even as it knew the client had been arrested and charged with criminal offences, while the agency’s review also found over a thousand instances, out of a sample of 20,000, where information related to money transfers was incomplete.
CIBC spokesman Tom Wallis says the administrative matters are related to a relatively small number of transactions and that the bank will continue to identify, investigate and do its part to deter and detect financial crimes.
So, how many CIBC employees were involved in these transactions? And what has become of them? Same question for RBC.
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