Foreign companies offer officials apartments in Paris in return for Sonatarch’s contracts

Sonatrach’s officials were offered advantages and gifts from their counterparts in foreign companies operating in Algeria. Of them, there were Italy’s Saipem and Germany’s Contel Algeria, according to investigations.

Son of Sonatrach’s former CEO Mohamed Meziane worked as an adviser at Saipem for 140,000 DZ per month and received 400 million centimes from Saipem’s CEO  Tullio Orsi to buy a car for his wife in 2009.

He organized his wedding party at a hotel in Tunisia in presence of eminent personalities and businessmen. Expenses were paid by Orsi. He met Meziane for the first time there.

Suspects told investigators Meziane’s family benefited from many advantages as part of deals with foreign oil and gas foreign companies operating in Algeria.

A manager at Contel Algeria said he bought an apartment for Meziane’s wife in Paris in 2008. Judicial investigations in France confirmed that.

He also said he bought a 650,000 DZ- villa for Meziane’s children in return for offering a share from Sonatrach’s electronic protection-related project to the German group.

According to investigations, Meziane’s son earned 2,385,000 Euros for his job as an adviser at Contel Algeria. He bought a house in Ben Aknoun and a 330,000 DZ-apartment in Dely Brahim in Algiers.

A.M. also bought many real-estates in the most affluent municipalities in Algiers by the money he got from deals with Sonatrach. He bought a 53,7000 Euro-apartment in Paris, a 130 million DZ-villa in Bir Khadem, an apartment in Ben Aknoun and many other real-estates in Algiers. Those advantages were in return for enabling Contel Algeria to enter the Algerian market and gain deals at Sonatrach.