400 days before the events, the Paris 2024 games are facing a major premiere: the Organizing Committee (Cojo) and other sites were raided on Tuesday as part of an investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) that could damage the image of JO who want “exemplary ” be.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, one of these investigations is about alleged unlawful confiscation of interests, misappropriation of public funds, favoritism and concealment of favoritism; illegal vesting, favoritism and concealment of favoritism. All within the framework of contracts related to the preparation of the Olympic Games.
The contacted Ministry of Sport and Olympic Games did not want to react at this time.
The prosecutor confirmed to AFP the information provided by France TV, according to which he had ordered searches in the Cojo and other locations.
The large modern and brown facade of the Cojo in Saint-Denis is not the only one to have seen the investigators’ parade on Tuesday morning: the search also involves the Olympic Works Delivery Company (Solideo) in west-central Paris, as well as other sites, according to the PNF.
AFP
The first investigation, launched in 2017 and entrusted to the Central Office for Combating Corruption, Financial and Tax Crimes (OCLCIFF), concerns a series of contracts awarded notably by the “Cojo” and the GIP 2024 (the previous bid committee) Cojo, Note d. Red.), the PNF specified.
The second trial, opened in 2022 and entrusted to the BRDE, the financial brigade of the Paris criminal police, relates to several contracts awarded by Cojo and Solideo, according to the PNF. The launch came after an audit by the French Anti-Corruption Authority (AFA). According to a source familiar with the matter, these are “consulting contracts” on “various subjects.”
According to another source familiar with the matter, one of those two lawsuits involves potential conflicts of interest involving Édouard Donnelly, the executive operations manager of Cojo, who previously operated as the Olympic Games provider through his company RNK.
When asked by AFP, Cojo and Solideo independently confirmed the searches and said they were “fully cooperating with investigators.” The IOC told AFP that it had been “informed” by the Cojo about these searches and assured them of their “cooperation” with the authorities, without giving further details.
The founding of the Cojo takes the form of an Associations Act of 1901. The Court of Auditors closely monitors its activities and will publish a report shortly.
In April 2021, two AFA reports on the organization of the Olympics that AFP learned of pointed to “risks of breaches of probity” and “conflicts of interest,” scratching the “exemplary” Olympic image the Olympics chief wanted to see Games Organizing Committee, Tony Estanguet.
The AFA inspectors considered the general process related to purchases to be “inaccurate and incomplete” and stressed that there are “sometimes situations of potentially uncontrolled conflicts of interest”.
In their reports, AFA inspectors recalled the criminal cases against the Presidents of the Brazilian and Japanese Olympic Committees in connection with the last two Summer Games (Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2021) and also noted that “there is a risk of probity violations”. . often in connection with major sporting events”.
“It’s not exactly a surprise. There had already been two warnings, one from the AFA and the other from a former member of the Cojo who was also subsequently fired,” recalls David Roizen, public sports policy expert.
“These searches are catastrophic for everyone. They have just lost their credibility, particularly in relation to the duty to be exemplary (…). “It will stick to their skin until the Olympic Games,” he analyses.
There have been several arrests and convictions since the end of the Tokyo Olympics. In May, two former officials of a corporate sponsor of the Tokyo Olympics were given suspended sentences in connection with a corruption scandal surrounding the event.
These searches are not the only legal stone in the shoes of the Olympic Games organizers. On Tuesday, ten workers then working without papers on the JO-2024 sites referred several construction giants, Vinci, Eiffage, Spie Batignolles and GCC, to the Labor Court of Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis) for “recognition” their work and the payment of arrears of wages.
A year ago, the Bobigny public prosecutor’s office launched an investigation into “secret work” and “employment of an untitled foreigner in an organized gang” after several irregular workers were identified during controls at an Olympic site.