MONACO: DISGRACED LAWYER THIERRY LACOSTE
My Encounters with Monaco's Most Corrupt Individual
The one and only time I met Thierry Lacoste, Prince Albert of Monaco’s disgraced lawyer and co-conspirator in corruption with disgraced Palace accountant Claude Palmero, was on October 17th, 2005.
I had just met with Virginia Gallico, lady-in-waiting to Princess Grace and, after her death, to Princess Caroline, and confidante to Prince Rainier III.
Madame Gallico did not know of my mission as intelligence chief to Prince Albert but met me as a longtime acquaintance.
Madame Gallico told me she despised Thierry Lacoste and questioned his legal abilities.
Actually, she said he is “a terrible lawyer,” adding that Princess Caroline, who in the past had retained Lacoste for legal counsel, would have nothing more to do with him.
Madame Gallico was particularly livid over Lacoste’s mishandling of the Prince’s relationship with Nicole Coste, the flight attendant from Togo and mother of Albert’s illegitimate son. The media debacle exploded, Madame Gallico told me, because after Prince Rainier died Lacoste cut off Coste’s financial support.
Furthermore, Madame Gallico referred to Lacoste as a “vulture” for how close he stuck to the Albert during the six days preceding Prince Rainier’s death, “hoping,” she said, “to seize power along with him.”
My next meeting was with Lacoste, who squeezed a few minutes in for me at seven o’clock in Bar Americaine at Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo. Lacoste looked a little like Rowan Atkinson’s Mr. Bean character and carried a buffalo briefcase from Hermes.
“What has the Prince told you about me?” I asked, not wishing to waste time covering old ground.
“CIA, FBI, DST…” Lacoste bobbed his head, imperiously fluttering his eyelids.
“Good. So you know what I do.”
Lacoste said he had no objection (!) and proclaimed what I was doing for Albert “useful,” though qualified this by moaning about the FBI having kept files on his mother, Nadia, an American citizen who handled media relations for the Palace, while the DST (French internal security) believed her to be a CIA agent. This apparently left Thierry with disdain for intelligence services.
Lacoste lost no time informing me of his status as “the Prince’s best friend,” which is how so very many people in Monaco depict themselves. In fact, Lacoste and Albert have known each other since childhood—and Thierry has been taking advantage of that relationship ever since, living off Albert’s coattails. (Some in Monaco whisper that Prince Rainier had an affair with Thierry’s mother, Nadia—and it is from there that his self-entitlement derives.)
Lacoste was familiar with our investigations into finance minister Franck Biancheri and senior judge Philippe Narmino. He ventured the opinion that Biancheri should be sent far away (as ambassador) and that the allegations against Narmino were “probably true.” The problem, he said, was that Narmino had been promised the top Justice job by Prince Rainier three years ago.
Nobody seemed to understand one simple fact: Prince Rainier was dead.
Furthermore, during most of the last five years of his life, Prince Rainier had been very ill and those around him exploited his incapacity to think clearly.
Prince Albert was now Sovereign. It should not have mattered what Rainier promised to anyone because: a) he was gone and b) he was not in his right mind when he’d made such promises.
I mentioned a Swede named Carl Carlsson, on whose trail of bankruptcies we’d briefed the Prince and whom Albert knew was bandying his name around to attract new investors/suckers. Lacoste expressed concern, explaining that the Prince was “too nice,” which is what almost everyone said about Albert. (Those who know the Prince well use nice as a euphemism for weak or spineless.)
Lacoste had a matter of his own he wished to discuss.
He had an important client who was resident in the principality, a Lebanese national named Samy Maroun. Maroun had a little problem. Like many of the other toadies in Monaco who suffered Albertitis, Maroun wanted to buy a table at the Princess Grace Foundation Gala.
The problem was this: The gala takes place in New York City and Maroun was frightened to travel to the United States. Something about dealing in embargoed oil and Iraqi Food for Oil, a serious crime our intelligence service was actively investigating at the time.
Lacoste asked me these questions: Was Maroun on a US watch list? Would he be stopped at Immigration and hassled if he attempted to enter the USA? Lacoste offered me payment to find out.
I declined this opportunity, explaining to Lacoste that I worked only for the Prince and that I strenuously avoided any conflict of interest, which included receiving payment from any other person or entity. (I did not mention that Maroun was already on my radar screen.)
I had hoped that Lacoste would learn something from this exchange, for it was quite outrageous that on one hand he was trying to influence—and even manage—the Prince’s decision-making in Monaco while, on the other, not only representing Monaco-based clients, but representing clients (such as Samy Maroun) whose continued presence in the principality was detrimental to the “new ethic” the Prince was publicly promoting (if not actually implementing).
Needless to say, my point sailed way over Lacoste’s head.
Lacoste’s co-conspirator in corruption, Claude Palmero (the Palace accountant fired last Tuesday), is a very grey, bland, milquetoast of a man.
It is my informed opinion that Thierry Lacoste coopted, corrupted and misdirected Palmero—and is therefore the bigger villain.
Here is another example of Lacoste’s treachery and poor character:
Our intelligence service maintained an asset within the French security service I codenamed LIDDY.
LIDDY informed me that Lacoste was mad at work trying to dig up dirt (there wasn’t any) on Jean-Luc Allavena (JLA), Prince Albert’s chief-of-staff.
JLA had disrupted several attempts by Lacoste to form a “a kitchen cabinet” around him. And he also stood in the way of several business deals Lacoste was trying to manipulate in Monaco to his own financial advantage.
So Lacoste wanted JLA (the gatekeeper) gone.
I zapped an email to JLA saying I had an answer to the mystery we’d discussed. JLA phoned me immediately and was utterly astonished by my news, having met for breakfast with Lacoste the morning before in Paris—and confiding in him to boot. “You warned me when I arrived in November about Lacoste’s kitchen cabinet,” JLA said to me. “You were right. He has 20 faces.”
JLA instantly phoned the Prince to convey this information, and called me back. “The Prince wants to hear all the details from you.”
And next morning, indeed, the Prince phoned. “Doctor Eringer?”
“Yes, my patient.”
“I need an antidote for Thierry Lacoste.”
“I’m working on a cocktail.”
“That might ease the pain.”
We agreed to meet early evening.
After a long day of meetings with Monaco’s interior minister Paul Masseron, the boys from SIGER (Captain Subraud and Jean-Raymond Gottlieb), several assets and others, I welcomed the Prince to M-Base. He seemed relaxed in a striped shirt and khaki trousers. He had just met with the Venezuelan education minister. (“Did he educate you on Hugo Chavez?” I asked.)
Over martinis, I tried to put everything into proper perspective—and deescalate the situation. “You reside in the eye of the hurricane,” I told Albert. “Everybody around you will constantly try to undercut everybody else around you in a never-ending war for greater access and influence. Everybody especially wants to cut away at Jean-Luc Allavena, who now stands in the way of everyone who expected to reap much influence, power and money during your reign by merit of their friendship with you. Allavena is doing a fabulous job as your gatekeeper so Thierry Lacoste’s behavior was to be expected. My only surprise is that anyone is surprised.”
Mid-afternoon the next day, waiting to board a delayed flight to London at Nice Airport, I received a phone call from an extremely irate Thierry Lacoste. Sounding like a man caught with his pants down (as he had been), Lacoste denied digging dirt on Allavena and demanded to know why I would say such a thing to the Prince.
I could scarcely believe two things: 1) Why and how this was being blown out of proportion and 2) Why the Prince would be so indiscreet as to call Lacoste and say, “Eringer told me…”
Was I back in kindergarten?
I explained to Lacoste that when I learned certain things from credible, tested sources, it was my duty to convey such things to the Prince—and it was for the Prince to decide whether or not it warranted further attention.
Lacoste changed gears, commencing new rants:
Rant One: “French intelligence came to me and said they cannot tell you everything because of your connection with U.S. intelligence—but they can tell me.”
So what? If I were the French I’d feel the same, yet the DST chief (Pierre de Bousquet de Florian) and I had found a comfortable level on which to effectively cooperate.
Rant Two blew me away : “I hate Monaco and all its back-biting gossipers,” said the Paris-based Lacoste. “That’s why I’d never live there.”
Little wonder Lacoste, using Albert’s name, has been pillaging the principality for the past 17 years.