"Ill-gotten gains": "Le Canard enchaîné" reveals new elements against Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso

The vice would be tightening around Denis Sassou-Nguesso, according to "Le Canard enchaîné". In an article on the judicial investigation against the son of the president of Congo-Brazzaville, the weekly claims that the investigating judges have got their hands on new compromising documents while Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso is accused of embezzling millions of euros of public money in the so-called "ill-gotten gains" case.

Denis Christophe Sassou-Nguesso, December 31, 2019 during a congress of the Congolese Labour Party. © Roch Bouka/RFI

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Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso would have been "reckless", according to the satirical newspaper Le Canard enchaîné which obtained orders from the investigating judges revealing that the son of the Congolese president would be linked to shell companies.

In 2020 and 2022, judges seized two mansions in Paris and Neuilly, luxury housing owned by Congolese companies. According to the article, the mansion of Neuilly, which includes seven rooms, five bathrooms, a hairdresser and a massage salon, would have cost for example 10 million euros.

However, according to the investigation, these entities are shell companies and the real owner of these assetsis Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso. The newspaper makes the connection through documents signed by it on behalf of these companies. He would have initialed a dozen transfer orders equivalent to 800,000 euros of decoration work on the opulent housing rue Fresnel, in Paris. The same goes for 12 million euros in real estate projects or for the insurance of a private jet.

The investigators also reportedly established that behind an identity and a false email address, Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso transmitted his orders to notaries and architects. One of them replied with "Bonjour Monsieur Denis".

His lawyer said that "the trial of African leaders is shocking". According to Jean-Jacques Neuer, "the France represented by its justice sets itself up as a moralist, as if it were saying that these countries were neither sovereign nor capable of judging themselves".

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• Denis Sassou-Nguesso
• Justice
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