This will make a big noise in the city of the dukes. The president of FC Nantes, a club playing in Ligue 1, Waldemar Kita was indicted in Paris in July 2022, notably for aggravated tax fraud, a judicial source said Thursday, confirming information from Actu Nantes.
M. Kita and his wife were indicted respectively” on 7 and 8 July 2022 for tax fraud, aggravated tax fraud, aggravated money laundering of tax fraud and aggravated money laundering of aggravated tax fraud”according to this source.
The national financial prosecutor’s office opened a preliminary investigation several months after the publication in 2017 of an article in Le Monde citing M. Kita’s name in the Panama Papers affair as a shareholder of offshore companies.
He would have “damaged the French tax authorities under the ISF”
In February 2019, searches were carried out at the Canaries’ training center, at the Paris headquarters of the Vivacy laboratories, which belong to M. Kita, as well as at his home. Then in September 2021, the investigations were entrusted to an examining magistrate.
According to a December 2020 investigation by Mediapart, Médiacités, Le Soir and Le standard citing a judicial document, the president of FC Nantes is suspected of having” damaged the French tax authorities to the tune of 14.8 million euros, solely under the wealth tax (ISF)”
Waldemar Kita, heavily criticized by many supporters of the club, “also received, between 2010 and 2019, at least 70 million euros in Luxembourg, on which he paid no income tax in France, as he is a tax resident in Belgium,” these media also claimed.
Criminal seizures would have been carried out, including a Parisian apartment belonging to M. Kita and, temporarily, a yacht belonging to him.
Suspect player transfers
The 70-year-old Franco-Polish businessman, who built his fortune on optics and hyaluronic acid, acquired FC Nantes in 2007. The club also saw its name appear in the “Football Leaks” through an article in the Belgian newspaper Litière at the end of 2016.
The economic daily indicated that a large part of the club’s shares (more than 99%) was held by a company based in Belgium, a maneuver aimed at avoiding taxes on the capital gains made during the sale of shares.
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In another case, FC Nantes was indicted on 21 September 2023 as a legal entity represented by its president, Mr. Kita, for complicity in a number of irregularities committed by sports agents, in the context of an investigation opened on suspect player transfers.
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