2023-11-18 07:00:19
It’s a postcard castle. Situated for five hundred years in its green setting, forty kilometers from Angoulême, in Charente. Nothing seems to have changed since the time of Francis 1is, who had made it his hunting lodge in Charente lands. The architecture was remodeled in the 19the century, but the old round crenellated tower, the French garden and the moat which surrounds it are reminiscent of times gone by. Everything is calm and in order at the end of October. No one might imagine that the Château de Nieuil, a small piece of local heritage, would cause agitation in Paris. Caught in the turmoil of a big case of possible tax fraud by an organized gang and laundering of aggravated tax fraud, he is, according to information from the Mondesubject to preventive criminal seizure, ordered by the courts in July.
The listed building remained for decades in the hands of the same family, who had decided, before the war, to make it one of the first castles transformed into hotels. With its 170 hectares of woods and meadows, it was bought in the fall of 2022 by Optical Center, for an undisclosed amount, estimated at more than 5 million euros. However, the optical and hearing group, which has more than five thousand employees and nearly seven hundred stores in France and internationally, is owned and managed by businessman Laurent Lévy, targeted by an investigation preliminary opened in October 2021 at the Paris public prosecutor’s office.
Established for around twenty years in Israel, from where he manages his group, Mr. Lévy is suspected of having set up a system of false invoices and fictitious or overvalued services, intended to artificially and massively reduce the profits of Optical Center in France, therefore, the amount of taxes due to the French tax authorities. He would thus have personally enriched himself, to the detriment of his own company and the State, injured to the tune of 85 million euros between 2018 and 2022, as revealed Mediapart, October 25. According to the news site, “275 million euros” Would’ve been “laundered via suspicious invoicing”. The misuse of corporate assets is also one of the offenses targeted by the justice system.
Mostly contested seizures
The preliminary investigation confirmed the investigators’ suspicions. And in view of the damage suffered by the State, the assets of Optical Center in France were seized preventively, for a total amount reaching 31 million euros, according to information from the Monde, confirmed by the Paris prosecutor’s office. These seizures – for the most part contested before the court of appeal – include bank and savings accounts, a tax credit for competitiveness and employment (CICE), but above all real estate, including the head office of the group, in the 17e district of Paris, and the sumptuous Château de Nieuil.
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