The "pope of influencers" Magali Berdah tried in December for "bankruptcy and laundering"

Europe 1 with AFP 16:36 pm, 02 October 2023

The "pope of influencers" Magali Berdah will be tried in December in Cannes for "bankruptcy and money laundering" for facts dating back to before the creation of her agency of influence online, we learned Monday from judicial source.

Magali Berdah was taken into custody

"The Nice prosecutor's office confirms that Magali Liévois wife Berdah was referred on September 29, 2023 as part of a summons procedure by minutes for bankruptcy and money laundering," the prosecutor's office told AFP, confirming information from the newspaper Le Parisien.

The referral takes place at the end of a police custody procedure. The procedure concerns "facts committed in Nice and Cannes, between January 30, 2014 and until July 31, 2015, in particular in its capacity as de facto manager of SAS BA&CO placed in liquidation on 30/07/2015 with a liability estimated at nearly 2.5 million euros," said the prosecutor.

The facts concerned therefore predate the creation in 2017 of Ms. Berdah's "e-influencer" agency Shauna Events, specializing in relations between TV personalities and brands.

A controversial figure in the world of "influence"

According to the available commercial registers, BA&CO, which was registered in Nice, had as its object "insurance brokerage, financial investment advice, intermediary in banking operations". The hearing has been set for December 18 and, in the meantime, Ms. Berdah "has been placed under judicial control with a ban on management and an obligation to clock," the prosecutor's office said.

Three other defendants will also be summoned. Often dubbed "the pope of influencers," Berdah is a controversial figure in the controversial social media "influencer" scene. In June, Parliament finally adopted a law to regulate these practices.

This world of influence, and in particular Ms. Berdah, was violently attacked by the rapper Booba, who denounces "influencers" and was in return accused of cyberharassment by the boss of Shauna Events who filed a complaint. Booba was heard Monday in Paris by an investigating judge in this case.