From High-Stakes Poker to Jail: Arnaud Mimran Arrested in France
The life of the glamorous French businessman Arnaud Mimran took a dramatic turn on Jan. 20, as France's National Judicial Customs Department (SNDJ) arrested him for charges that link him to several frauds and homicides.
With most of his fortune coming from the real estate sector, Mimran became a known name in the international poker world as he was one of the players included in the initial list for the first-ever Big One for One Drop event, the $1,000,000 buy-in poker tournament held during the 2012 World Series of Poker (WSOP) and won by Antonio Esfandiari.
Although Mimran did not actually follow up on his plan to participate in the tournament, his relationship with poker has seen him in other top live events, such as the 2006 European Poker Tour Monte Carlo event, where he placed 13th and cashed for €28,100.
Known to be primarily a cash game player, Mimran is now of risk to be forced to step aside from a life of luxury, expensive pleasures, and beautiful women as the SNDJ seems to be convinced that the player is involved in a significant VAT fraud scheme and a number of homicides.
According to France’s Le Journal du Dimanche (LJDD), Judge Guillaume Daieff decided to put the 43-year-old businessman under preliminary arrest as he believes him to be involved in a major carbon tax fraud that was conducted during the 2000s. Authorities believe that Mimran and a group of associates may have earned billions of Euros in illegal profits by orchestrating a VAT fraud on the sale of tradeable CO2 emission quotas.
Mimran To Clarify the Nature of His Personal Wealth
The tax fraud, however, is not the only charge that Mimran' faces right now. Authorities also believe that the businessman could be connected to a number of homicides.
France's press reports that Mimran's name appears also in some other sensitive dossiers, as the one on the killing of Samy Souied, a 45-year-old man who was shot in Paris under mysterious circumstances back in 2010.
At the time of the killing, Souied — who is believed to have had an active role in the aforementioned carbon tax fraud — was in Paris for a one-day trip, during which he allegedly met with Mimran to discuss, amongst other things, a sum of between 20 and 50 million Euros that Mimran should have invested for him.
Known for his intimate relationship with the Paraguayan showgirl and model Claudia Galanti, Mimran is now also expected by the authorities to give some details about his personal wealth and his income.
Although he has declared a yearly income of about €45,000 during 2010 and 2012, Mimran is reported to be living in a 400-square-meter apartment with a swimming pool in Paris' exclusive 16e Arrondissement, and to have also paid for the presence of VIPs such as rapper Puff Daddy, top-model Bar Refaeli, and music industry guru Pharell Williams at his son’s bar-mitsva.
Mimran's name also appears in a dossier on the homicide of his former father-in-law, French billionaire Claude Dray, and in another one on the attack against French high-stakes poker player Cyril Mouly, whose driver was attacked and killed by two masked men in April 2014.
Image courtesy of CheGossip.com
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