Alain Afflelou, who owns Europe’s largest chain of optician franchises, is said to be “stunned” by the discovery of around 700 kilograms of cocaine on one of his planes at Punta Cana airport a week ago.
The plane had been leased out to Lyon-based Transhelicopter Services company, and was due to fly from Punta Cana to Yvelines airport near Paris, via the Azores.
His communications director, Isabelle Amaraggi said that he learned of the events via the press and that this plane and another smaller one managed by this company were used by Alain Afflelou and his colleagues in their line of work. She said that when it was not being used it was rented out, and that they have no idea who hired the plane, but that their lawyers were trying to find out.
The plane’s hold was apparently stuffed full of small wheeled suitcases, while other cases were rammed between the seats. Police said the seizure was the result of seven months of investigations.
Officials arrested 35 people in the raid, including soldiers, police and customs agents, who were suspected of belonging to a drug trafficking ring. Four of those arrested were French.
Carlos Castillo Diaz, deputy Attorney General for the Dominican Republic, said that the cocaine had been trafficked through the VIP area of the airport, and that the chief of the high-security area was among those arrested. He said he would be asking for prison sentences for all of them.
Afflelou is one of France’s highest-profile businessmen, with an estimated fortune of ?155 million, and recently said that he was moving to the UK for business opportunities, rather than to avoid the new French tax on the wealthy. His company currently has 1,200 stores in nine countries.
But his departure came in the midst of a flood of French millionaires leaving their homeland, including film star Gerard Depardieu and musician Jean-Michel Jarre.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9955355/French-tycoon-Alain-Afflelous-private-jet-used-for-40m-cocaine-trafficking.html