French investigators have raided the offices of the 2024 Paris Olympics organisers and event management firms involved in the opening ceremony, sources close to the probe told AFP on Thursday.
The sources said the raids took place on Wednesday as part of an ongoing investigation into alleged favouritism in the awarding of contracts linked to the Olympics.
The searches are part of investigations into contracts awarded for the Games that are being led by the French National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF).
“Paris 2024 confirms that the PNF attended its headquarters on Wednesday, October 18 and obtained all of the information that it asked for. Paris 2024 is cooperating fully with the investigation as it has always done,” the organising committee said in a statement.
The searches on Wednesday focused on an event management company called Paname 24, which has a leading role in organising the opening ceremony on the Seine on July 26, an event that takes the event outside of a stadium setting for the first time at a Summer Olympics.
It is also scheduled to organise the opening ceremony of the Paralympics on August 28.
The first raids took place in June, targeting the organising committee’s headquarters and the offices of Solideo, the company responsible for the construction of Olympic sites.
Investigators then also raided the homes of two of its high-ranking officials, Etienne Thobois, the Chief Executive Officer of Paris 2024, and Edouard Donnelly, the executive director of operations, and the offices of a consulting firm the two men founded.
A source close to the investigation said it concerned around 20 contracts.
The Paris Olympics take place from July 26 to August 11.
