“Dubai Papers”: the “radicalization” of a Belgian tax prince

A “libertarian” revenge against society and the State: at the “Dubai Papers” trial, Prince Henri de Croÿ recounted on Monday how his “radicalization” pushed him to set up an organization practicing tax fraud in an industrial manner.

In a rare trial behind the scenes of the international tax fraud industry, thirteen people are on trial for a month in Paris for having run between 2007 and 2018 what the prosecution considers to be a “large-scale tax fraud and money laundering operation”. At the conclusion of the three days of interrogation of Henri de Croÿ, leader of the Jawer/Helin organization, his lawyer Antoine Vey wants to understand the “engine” which pushed this member of an old and honorable family to descend into illegality. The prosecution estimates the shortfall for the French tax authorities at at least 54 million euros.

The “weight” of a title of nobility

Generally recognizing his responsibility in the facts, the 68-year-old prince first contrasts the pomp of his title of nobility - "a weight" he said last week - and the difficulty of his childhood - "far from being great opulence", in a family struck by tragedies. “There was this continual gap between the real life in which we lived and the very important social preconceptions. I got bullied during boarding school. In order to survive, I had to develop a perhaps somewhat aggressive attitude,” he explains.

With snow-white hair combed back, a thick herringbone jacket with a stiff gait, the lawyer, who today presents himself as a desperate and ruined man, also justifies his headlong flight by the “shock” of his time in prison in Belgium twenty years ago. Accused of tax fraud, for a tax optimization scheme that was certainly “aggressive” but “perfectly legal” according to him, he spent several weeks in pre-trial detention in 2006. At the end of a dozen years of proceedings, he ended up definitively acquitted by the Belgian courts in 2019.

Prison “shock”

“Being dragged through the mud, the 'black prince' (nickname given by the press, editor's note), things like that, you either die on the spot or you try to justify your life,” he declares. This will therefore be the tipping point into outright tax fraud. This first legal procedure “was a monumental shock for me and it was one of the elements which made me slide towards radicalization”, recognizes Henri de Croÿ, standing straight but with his head bent over the microphone like a penitent.

Expert in complex legal arrangements juggling between companies and tax havens, this descendant of the guardian of the Emperor Charles V takes on this “intellectual” gymnastics which “amused him a lot”. Anticipating the lifting of Swiss banking secrecy, he moved his structure from Switzerland to the United Arab Emirates from 2007. “Seeing the evolution of laws, looking for the most confidential places, that was part of our dynamic,” confides the aristocrat, claiming a “libertarian side” in this global hide-and-seek with the tax authorities.

In addition to hiding the money in offshore companies, which clients recovered via discreet hand-delivered cash or anonymous credit cards, Jawer/Helin offered companies the opportunity to reduce their tax base by sending them fictitious or overvalued fee invoices. Within the organization, “Henri was the hunter and I the incubator,” describes his big brother and associate Emmanuel de Croÿ, 69, subsequently questioned by the court. “I took care of the clients, I set up the structures according to Henri's instructions and then I had the relations with the client,” explains the elder of the two, who does not have a memory as clear as his brother's before the judges and minimizes his role in an organization of which he was nevertheless one of the three partners. The trial is scheduled until December 3.