Monaco. Relatives of Prince Albert victims of an obscure case of destabilization
Two men suspected of having participated in a destabilization operation targeting four relatives of Prince Albert II of Monaco were indicted in Paris on Thursday, the prosecution said on Sunday. Arrested on Tuesday and placed in police custody, the two suspects are a Belgian entrepreneur and a Monegasque presenting himself as a lawyer, according to the JDD.
A preliminary investigation had been opened in November 2021 to examine a complaint by four men. The latter denounced the dissemination, on a website entitled “Dossiers du Rocher”, of videos, exchanges of confidential emails and incriminating articles in connection with real estate projects in Monaco.
These four men, who claim to be victims, are “Laurent Anselmi, chief of staff to Prince Albert II, Thierry Lacoste, lawyer and childhood friend of the prince, Didier Linotte, president of the Supreme Court of Monaco, the local constitutional court, and Claude Palmero, chartered accountant and administrator of the sovereign’s property”, specifies the JDD. According to the weekly newspaper, they were referred to as “Club des 4” or “G4”.
A multi-million dollar smear campaign
According to a source quoted by our colleagues, the two suspects “are probably only second knives in this well-orchestrated operation” which required “significant financial resources”, i.e. several million euros. Real estate development in the Principality of Monaco, a microstate where the average price per m2 is among the highest in the world, is at the heart of financial issues.
The two men under investigation are being prosecuted for “concealment of breaches of an automated data processing system”. They were placed under judicial control. The judicial information also targets the offenses of maintaining data in an automated system, the fraudulent extraction of data from a computer system and the interception of electronic correspondence, underlined the prosecution.