French prosecutors on Friday said that they had seized a house in the Paris suburbs linked to the son of the president of the Republic of the Congo, in a probe into suspected ill-gotten gains.
According to reports by the National Financial Prosecutor, the property in upscale Neuilly-sur-Seine, linked to Denis Christel Sassou, was seized in June,
However, they added that Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso has so far not been charged.
Reports have it that the townhouse was bought in 2009 for 5.2 million euros ($5.2 million) before being renovated for a further 5.4 million.
A 2007 complaint by watchdogs prompted Paris anti-corruption investigators to look more closely into the dealings of Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso, a former paratrooper who first came to power in the central African nation in 1979.
He and his family, as well as the Bongo family in power in Gabon, are believed to have misused public funds to acquire property empires in France.
Earlier this week, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s uncle had a conviction upheld by France’s top judicial court using a new law on ill-gotten gains introduced last year.
The Court of Cassation confirmed 85-year-old Rifaat al-Assad’s sentence of four years in jail — which he is unlikely to serve due to his age and ill health as well as confirming the confiscation of a 90-million-euro property empire.
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