Former French international, Djibril Cissé, appeared this Wednesday before the Bastia court. Although he was acquitted on charges of tax fraud and tax fraud laundering, the former French international was sentenced to 8 months in prison for misuse of corporate assets.
Aged 43, Djibril Cissé was due to appear on Wednesday, September 11, in Bastia. The former attacker was suspected in particular of laundering tax fraud, misuse of company assets and omission of accounting entries. In his absence, a one-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 100,000 euros were required.
At the end of the judgment, this Wednesday, November 13, and in accordance with the requisitions of the prosecution, Djibril Cissé was acquitted of the charges of tax fraud and laundering of tax fraud.
On the other hand, the former French international was sentenced to eight months in prison and a fine of 20,000 euros for misuse of company assets and omission of accounting entries. The Bastia Criminal Court also handed down an additional sentence of deprivation of the right to stand for election for 3 years.
The story began when a single-member simplified joint stock company (SASU) domiciled in Furiani (Haute-Corse), place of residence in Corsica of the former Sporting Club de Bastia striker, was caught by the courts. While the company was placed in compulsory liquidation in 2020, the associated current account remained in debt of 550,000 euros, which constitutes, according to the prosecution, abuse of corporate assets.
A tax debt of 230,000 euros
The investigation considered that he had not declared this sum to the tax authorities, which characterizes tax fraud laundering. “He transferred money to his bank accounts,” the prosecutor argued on September 11. Laundering tax fraud consists, according to the website of the Ministry of Justice, of reintroducing into the economic circuit money hidden from the tax services.
The investigation also reported a tax debt of 230,000 euros for failure to declare VAT and corporate tax. For the defense lawyer, the micro-enterprise was used to manage income linked to the image of Djibril Cissé, at the time of his retraining as a DJ and football consultant for television.
“He has been going through this for years. He owes huge sums to the tax authorities. There can be no money laundering since there is no tax evasion. He had difficulties with the accounting firm which did not manage the file well and did not inform him,” argued Mr. Malcolm Mouldaïa.
