French investigators conducted a raid at the Paris 2024 Olympics organisers’ headquarters on Tuesday as part of corruption investigations into contracts linked to the Games. According to officials, this is the third consecutive time that graft and corruption allegations have dogged the Summer Olympics. The Paris organising committee said in a statement that a search was underway at their headquarters in the suburb of Saint-Denis.
Tuesday’s search and other related raids were linked to two preliminary investigations related to the Olympics that had not previously been made public, according to an official with the financial prosecutor’s office, who was not authorized to be publicly named according to office policy. One probe was opened in 2017 — the year Paris was picked by the International Olympic Committee as the 2024 host — and the other began last year.
The biggest event France is hosting in decades, the Games are being billed as a celebration of openness after two Olympics closed off by the COVID-19 pandemic, and as an example of democratic celebration after two World Cups tainted by human rights concerns in Qatar and Russia.
The organizers and Paris city hall have stressed a spirit of transparency and social justice — including planning an opening ceremony outdoors along the Seine that will be free for up to half a million people. The Games are scheduled for July 26-Aug. 11, 2024.
Saccage 2024, an anti-Olympics group that argues that the Games cause widespread ecological and social damage, said it was “very pleased” the raids took place.
“For us, an event of Olympic proportions cannot be held without corruption,” the group said in a statement. “It’s the size of the event that makes it necessary, whatever the country.”
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The probe opened in 2017 is looking into suspected embezzlement of public funds and favoritism, and concerns about an unspecified contract reached by Paris organizers, the prosecutor’s office said.
The 2022 one followed an audit by the French Anti-corruption Agency. The prosecutor’s office said that case targets suspected conflict of interest and favoritism involving several contracts reached by the organizing committee and Solideo, the public body in charge of Olympic infrastructure.
That body’s offices were also searched, prosecutors said. According to Le Monde newspaper, raids also took place at the headquarters of several companies and consultants linked to the organization of the Games.
Solideo oversees construction and renovation or more than 60 projects for the multi billion-dollar Olympics — including the athletes’ village in the Saint-Denis neighborhood that is set to provide about 2,000 housing units after the games.
IOC on the matter
The IOC said in a statement it was informed by the organizers that they are cooperating with authorities. It did not comment further.
The raids unfolded as the IOC executive board began a two-day meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland.
IOC president Thomas Bach told reporters early Monday the meeting “of course will be about Paris, where we have some good news after the visit of the coordination mission and after my visit to France, to President Macron, and also the organizing committee.”
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