This evening I deconstruct an article on Monaco’s corruption scandal published in today’s (UK) Sunday Times.
Prince Albert of Monaco has been dragged into an explosive legal battle over sleaze allegations in his super-rich Mediterranean country after dismissing the adviser who was long his éminence grise.
My comment: Not so much “dragged into” as complicit in.
Albert’s complicity is the result of his weakness and inattention to what was going on around him (in his name) along with his lack of any backbone (until much too late) to stand up to his very corrupt courtiers.
Claude Palmero, 67, Albert’s asset manager, was ordered to leave his post after being targeted by a mysterious website set up anonymously to denounce what it claims is widespread corruption in the principality, which has a population of just 37,000 but the world’s highest percentage of millionaires. The case has given rise to a flurry of civil lawsuits — but also to a criminal inquiry into corruption accusations.
My comment: There is no doubt whatsoever that Claude Palmero is criminally corrupt and should be prosecuted to the hilt. I witnessed Palmero’s corruption firsthand as Prince Albert’s spymaster during the period 2002-2007—and reported it to Albert, to no avail.
The fallout risks revealing state secrets in a country that has long attracted wealthy sports stars such as Novak Djokovic and industrialists such as Britain’s Sir Jim Ratcliffe through its tradition of stability and discretion, lawyers say.
My Comment: Who gives a crap about Novak Djokovic and Sir Jim Ratcliffe? This is a story about corruption, not celebrity.
The marriage of Prince Albert and Princess Charlene of Monaco is under constant scrutiny.
My comment: The marriage of Albert and Charlene was a financial arrangement from the get-go.
However, Albert’s secrets are also at risk of disclosure, according to lawyers who hint at potential embarrassment for a ruler with a colourful love life and a marriage under constant scrutiny.
My comment: No shit. Much to be disclosed. None of it pretty.
The prince also sacked Laurent Anselmi, 61, his chief of staff, and publicly distanced himself from Thierry Lacoste, 63, his lawyer and childhood friend, and Didier Linotte, 75, president of Monaco’s supreme court.
My comment: All well deserved sackings, especially that of Thierry Lacoste, perhaps the worst culprit of all.
Like Palmero, Anselmi, Lacoste and Linotte had been denounced by the website, called Les Dossiers du Rocher, as instigators of alleged corruption involving property deals running to tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of euros.
My comment: Indeed. Over a period of 17 years their corruption was massive.
All four men deny wrongdoing and claim to be the victims of a plot orchestrated by an ill-intentioned property magnate. They say Les Dossiers du Rocher contains fake documents and false allegations. The G4, as Palmero, Anselmi, Lacoste and Linotte are nicknamed, initially won Albert’s backing. Last year, he denounced Les Dossiers du Rocher as a manipulation and said its aim was to undermine his principality.
My comment: There is nothing fake about incriminating emails uncovered and published by Les Dossiers de Rocher.
The documents are genuine and reveal criminal wrongdoing on a widespread scale. These men are not victims. They are greedy, evil miscreants who deserve to be prosecuted and imprisoned for their crimes.
Claude Palmero “has become the man who is making the palace tremble” Le Monde said.
My comment: Claude Palmero is a pathetic, very bland man who took huge advantage of the position provided him by a weak Sovereign.
However, in interviews in recent weeks, the prince has changed his view about his longtime advisers and friends. He told Le Figaro, the French daily newspaper, that he had lost confidence in them and “if confidence evaporates you can no longer work together”.
My comment: Prince Albert should have lost confidence in these turds 17 years ago when I, his intelligence chief, first made Albert aware of their very blatant corruption.
Albert added that he hoped to draw a line under the scandal, saying: “When questions arise, you need to know how to change the people who surround you to find the right path again and to write a new page in your history.” Albert told Monaco-Matin, the local newspaper, that the allegations aired by Les Dossiers du Rocher and repeated by French media outlets had been “disastrous for Monaco’s image. We must absolutely put a stop to it.”
My comment: Albert, if he were so minded, could have and should have “put a stop to it” 17 years ago. Instead, he chose to allow their corruption to continue and now pretends it is all new to him.
However, Le Monde, the French daily, said that Albert’s hopes were likely to be dashed. It said that far from ending the scandal, the ousting of Palmero was likely to aggravate it. Sleaze claims are “now at the doors of the princely palace”, the newspaper added. “Claude Palmero has become the man who is making the palace tremble,” it said.
My comment: Little doubt Palmero knows what I know: Albert was complicit in corruption and Palmero will prove it through his files (if he can regain possession of them).
Palmero has been Monaco’s royal asset manager since 2005, when he was taken on by Albert’s father, Prince Rainier, the widower of Grace Kelly. Not only has he overseen real estate developments in a country where property prices are on average about five times higher than in Paris, he is also regularly described as Albert’s éminence grise.
My comment: Palmero was already in place as royal asset manager early in June 2002 when Albert retained me to be his intelligence adviser.
The only thing eminently grise about Palmero is that a) he is grey, very grey—a bland and boring bureaucrat, and b) he is greasy, as in criminally corrupt.
Le Monde said he was the “holder of all the secrets of the principality, from the prince’s private accounts to government investments”. The newspaper added that he was “the sort of person you spare in general”. After his homes and offices were raided by police following the opening of a criminal investigation into corruption allegations, Palmero seemed irritated. He said that Albert’s interview with Le Figaro included a “regrettable echo of a recurrent campaign of denigration . . . feeding off false documents, malicious accusations and fallacious insinuations. I cannot let myself be slandered in this way.”
My comment: I love the direction this is going.
All of the rats involved (including Albert) will now be clawing at one another and, hopefully, all of the corruption that has been going on for much too long will be exposed for all to see.
Le Monde reported that he was preparing to sue the prince for libel. He has also claimed wrongful dismissal, describing his termination as “arbitrary, defamatory and unmotivated”.
My comment: There is nothing worse than a cornered rat with competent legal counsel.
Pierre-Olivier Sur, Palmero’s lawyer, said that the files taken from his client’s homes and office in this month’s police raids had placed Albert at the heart of the case. “The raid targeting Claude Palmero is a raid on the prince,” he told Le Figaro. “It has broken all [Albert’s] secrets, personal and state.”
My comment: As above.
Albert has two children born during his liaisons with an American estate agent and a Togolese air hostess, and two more from his marriage to Princess Charlene, a Zimbabwean-born swimmer who represented South Africa at the Olympics. They spent months apart in 2021, officially because Charlene was recovering from an infection in South Africa, and have since denied rumours of a separation.
My comment: Albert actually has three illegitimate children. The eldest has never been disclosed.