Dirty Money: when the police hit the hooligans’ wallets | M6 | Enquête Exclusive

Drug dealers, swindlers and pimps have got into the habit of laundering their money by investing in property, jewels or showing off at the wheels of luxury cars. But now the police and the judges can hit them in the wallet. Presumed crooks are finding themselves on the street, deprived of their property before they even go on trial. Apartments seized from one day to the next, powerful cars sold at auction or commandeered for police service. Gone are the days when big bosses in prison could continue to run their networks using the money from their crimes. Today, even the property of the parents or families of dealers can be confiscated. Last year in France 247 million Euros of dirty money was seized. And nobody is safe. We had exclusive access to Téodorin Obiang, the son of the President-Dictator of Equatorial Guinea, suspected of money laundering. When he goes on a shopping spree in Paris he spends colossal sums of money, which the Law suspects has been embezzled from his country’s coffers. But the Law plans on getting it back: his town house on the avenue Foch is searched and the police seize not only his valuable furniture, his works of art but also his Rolls Royces and Ferraris.