A Marseille lawyer was imprisoned on Friday, May 6, at the Draguignan detention center (Var), immediately after his indictment for money laundering in an organized gang, criminal association and aid to illegal residence. As she investigates a “internationally organized laundering network involving at least Turkey, Algeria and Switzerland”the Marseilles investigating judge Nathalie Roche brought to light the interventions of the lawyer Arié Goueta with the protagonists of the case, on the occasion of obscure operations to set up civil real estate companies (SCI) and real estate purchases in Marseilles. “I went to Goueta, he told me to buy a building to do French resident papers”thus declared, during his police custody in February, an Algerian merchant, designated by the smugglers of the money laundering network as “one of the directors”.
The case began on March 10, 2021 with a banal customs check on the A8 motorway at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume (Var). In the vehicle of Mohamed F., an Italian of Syrian origin living in Germany, customs officers discovered 109,050 euros in cash in the glove box and under the back seat, a large part of the banknotes showing traces of narcotics.
A lawyer who was still pleading
Mohamed F. admitted having recovered the money from a certain Adel, in the northern districts of Marseille. He had to go to Milan to catch a flight to Istanbul. He declared a remuneration of 2,000 to 3,000 euros for this ” funds transfer “. Investigators established that he had made seven trips to Turkey since January, thus having been able to transport hundreds of thousands of euros. The analysis of this smuggler’s phone would lead to the arrest and indictment of eleven people, including Mr. Goueta’s client.
This is not the first time that Mr. Goueta is incarcerated. It had been provisionally, from December 17, 2015 to February 8, 2016, as part of the Marseille part of the sprawling case of VAT fraud on carbon quotas. For his participation in this scam involving 385 million euros in evaded VAT rights, he was sentenced, in March 2020, to five years in prison, including three years suspended, a fine of 500,000 euros and a permanent ban. to exercise. This sentence has not been executed due to an appeal still awaiting examination by the Court of Cassation.
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