INFO FRANCEINFO. Searches and police custody at Optical Center, suspected of tax evasion

Searches were carried out this Thursday, March 16 in the morning at the Paris headquarters of Optical Center. The company is targeted in particular by an investigation for “tax fraud” and “money laundering”, learned franceinfo from a source familiar with the matter. The Paris prosecutor’s office specifies that seven people are placed in police custody. The CEO and founder of Optical Center, Laurent Levy, who lives in Israel, was not arrested.

Police officers from the Central Office for the Fight against Financial and Tax Offenses (Oclciff) suspect the glasses and hearing giant – around 700 stores and franchisees, nearly a billion euros in turnover – of having set up a system of tax evasion, based in particular on false invoices and overvalued services, to reduce its results.

Suspicious bank flows spotted

Several hundred million euros of suspicious bank flows have been identified, passing through accounts in Hong Kong in particular. This investigation was opened in October 2021, after a report from Tracfin, the anti-money laundering service of the Ministry of the Economy. It concerns, according to the Paris public prosecutor’s office contacted by franceinfo, “tax fraud in an organized gang”, “tax fraud laundering”, but also “abuse of property or credit by a manager for personal purposes”.