Searches are increasing one year before the opening of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Etienne Thobois and Edouard Donnelly, two senior officials of the Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Cojop), were also searched on Tuesday, June 20, as part of a preliminary investigation by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), learned Agence France-Presse (AFP), Friday, June 23.
Confirming information from France Télévisions, a judicial source indicated that these operations had “were carried out as part of the preliminary investigation of 2017” opened by the PNF.
Entrusted to the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses (OCLCIFF), this investigation concerns a series of contracts awarded in particular by “the Organizing Committee for the 2024 Olympic Games and the GIP 2024 [le comité de candidature qui précédait le COJO] », said the public prosecutor on Tuesday. The offenses covered are illegal taking of interests, embezzlement of public funds, favoritism and concealment of favouritism.
“Everyone must do their job calmly”
After having been service providers for the Olympic Games, Etienne Thobois and Edouard Donnelly became, for the first, general manager of the organizing committee at the beginning of 2018 and, for the second, executive director of the operations of the organizing committee in November, arousing suspected conflicts of interest.
While these searches had not elicited any statement so far from the government, the Minister of Sports and JOP, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra said to herself “serene”in an interview with West France, published on Friday.
“On the merits, I am not in a position to formulate an assessment because the procedure is in progress. On the other hand, I know that the teams cooperated fully with the investigative services of the judicial police, she explained. And I am calm because the Cojop and the Solideo have for years been subject to extensive and regular checks. From now on, everyone must do their job calmly: the investigators as well as the teams preparing for the Olympics”.
Several searches
In the 2022 activity report of which AFP was aware, the OCOG’s ethics committee recalls having made “a favorable opinion” to the recruitment of Edouard Donnelly “subject to the strict observation of measures likely to prevent the latter from intervening or carrying out any action in connection with the situation of conflict of interest in which he would find himself with the company RNK”a company which, according to a source familiar with the matter, is not targeted by the investigation.
The ethics committee has largely ruled out any risk of such a conflict with Keneo, a sports consultancy firm targeted by a search on Wednesday as part of the same investigation. Keneo was co-founded by Etienne Thobois and Edouard Donnelly. The current CEO of Keneo, Vincent de Bary specified on Wednesday that the search “concerned the activities of [l’entreprise] avant 2020 » and his arrival at the head of the consulting firm.
In addition to Keneo, other searches were carried out on Tuesday in this investigation and in another opened in 2022 and also relating to contracts awarded within the framework of the Olympic Games, targeting the OCOG and the Olympic Works Delivery Company.