By Diana Rose Wairumbi
French billionaire Vincent Bollore, who stepped down days ago as chairman of media giant Vivendi, is being detained by French judicial police as part of an investigation into allegations of corrupt business deals in Africa.
Shares in his holding company Groupe Bollore SA plunged around 6 percent on the news of the unexpected detention, while shares in Vivendi also fell around 1 percent.
The Bollore Group has vast holdings in the media, oil and transportation industries.
Groupe Bollore said that its African business interests were currently under investigation over billing for communication services in Guinea and Togo in 2009 and 2010. The company denies any wrongdoing and is cooperating with the investigation.
“He’s indeed being questioned as we speak,” Bollore’s lawyer Olivier Baratelli said.
Two weeks ago Paris-based Challenges magazine reported that Bollore had been called upon by judges investigating whether the 66-year-old’s Havas Communications company had been involved in influencing elections in West Africa.
The magazine reported that the probe involved two separate cases in Togo and Guinea and in 2009 and 2010. The French judges are examining whether Havas helped fund the electoral campaigns of politicians who once in office granted port concessions to Bollore’s group, the magazine stated.
