Albert of Monaco angry at the scandal: four questions to understand everything about the Dossiers du Rocher
For several months, a campaign of denunciation and harassment on a very large scale worries Monegasques. Here are four points to fully understand this complex file which angers Albert of Monaco.
Yet renowned for his remarkable discretion, the Principality of Monaco has been torn for some time by a sinister war of highly publicized denunciations. True or false, the accusations implicate the highest echelons of Monegasque society, but the affair begins to take on the air of a settling of scores between rival gangs. The bottom line? Ultra lucrative real estate transactions.
The case started last September when an anonymous video posted on social networks charged a first member of Prince Albert’s entourage. In the following weeks, the story grows with the creation of multiple websites, the appearance of false journalists and even a campaign of harassment by text on the inhabitants of the Rock.
If the Monegasques are agitated among themselves, the ongoing debacle escapes the attention of the international press until March 21, 2022, when the daily “Le Monde”, alerted by an anonymous source too, published a long investigation by Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme on the subject. Now all eyes are on the principality. Explanations.
1. Where does Les Dossiers du Rocher come from?
It all starts with a few accusatory videos that only rack up a few thousand views. In the wake appears a website, Les Dossiers du Rocher, hosted in the United States, which disseminates dozens of articles and documents (often authenticated) aimed at incriminating four members of the close guard of Albert II of Monaco. the mysterious author nicknamed them the “Club of 4” or the “G4”. They are Claude Palmero, chartered accountant from father to son and right arm of Prince Albert, Thierry Lacoste, the lawyer and childhood friend of the monarch, Laurent Anselmi, the head of the sovereign cabinet, and, finally, Didier Linotte, the president of the Monegasque Supreme Court.
Afterwards, other shell websites are blooming, almost everywhere in Europe, but also in India, taking word for word the articles of the Dossiers du Rocher, thus offering them a certain form of se, at least enough to fool the search navigators… Secondly, the offensive goes through text messages and messages sent via WhatsApp. Nearly 8,000 Monegasques received links to the Dossiers du Rocher site and screenshots of confidential documents. The great discomfort.
When the Monegasque police seize the file, they quickly realize that it is aboutprofessional work and that the identity of the person (or persons) behind the Files of the Rock is well camouflaged behind a series of smokescreens. The operation would have cost several million euros to set up…
2. What are the entourage of Prince Albert II of Monaco accused of?
On September 23, 2021, an Internet user on condition of anonymity published a first video in which he accused Didier Linotte, the president of the Supreme Court of Monaco, of corruption. A few days later, it’s the turn of Thierry Lacoste of being targeted by whistleblower anonymous. According to the latter, the four men, who, according to their own words, form “a little cord around the prince”, would use their influence and their proximity to power to enrich themselves handsomely through various real estate transactions on the Rock, the playground of billionaires where the price per square meter holds the world record. Thanks to the survey published in “Le Monde”, we thus discover that in terms of real estate, in Monaco, all shots are allowed when it comes to pocketing fabulous sums of money.
3. Who is “the Pastorian octopus”?
Nicknamed “PP” or “P2”, the Monegasque businessman Patrice Pastor, whose fortune is said to amount to more than twenty billion euros, has been quoted several times in the Dossiers du Rocher affair. According to Claude Palmero, the property developer in question would be furious to see his ambitions to hold the monopoly of the real estate market in Monaco countered by the quartet.
On his sidethe wealthy Monegasque defends himself vigorously of these accusations and the attacks in turn in the columns of “Le Monde”, saying: “The substance of the subject, everyone knows it: the methods of a small group which sets up business by taking advantage of the prince. And me, I’m embarrassed, because I am the best in Monaco“. For now, there is no evidence to identify Patrice Pastor as the “raven” behind Les Dossiers du Rocher.
4. Why is Albert of Monaco furious?
“With the greatest energy, I condemn this defamatory campaign anonymous and false rumors and slanders that target several servants of the Principality, declared Prince Albert in the columns of “Monaco-Matin”, October 28, 2021. He continues: it is obvious that through these personalities, it it is the State of Monaco and its institutions that we are attacking”. A few months later, the Monegasque sovereign answered questions from journalists from the newspaper “Le Monde”, and reiterated his condemnations with the same force: “ These inadmissible acts can represent a maneuver of destabilization. I hope that the investigations opened in Monaco and Paris will allow us to know the sponsors of this machination”.
A “royal” anger due to the fact that Prince Albert would seem somewhat naive in the face of a entourage full of ambitious intriguers. In addition, these famous “Dossiers” draw media attention to the Rock, whose discretion is well known and who would no doubt have preferred to wash their dirty laundry in private.
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