Paris Olympic Committee Corruption Raids Continue

FILE: The Olympic rings are seen in front of the Paris City Hall, in Paris, Sunday, April 30, 2023. The 2024 Olympic Games will take place from July 26 to Aug.11, 2024 in Paris an other venues. On June 23, 2023, French police continued raids said to be corruption-connected.

PARIS — French police have raided the homes of two high-ranking officials in the organizing committee of the 2024 Paris Olympics in an ongoing investigation, a source in the probe told AFP on Friday.

The homes of Etienne Thobois, the Chief Executive Officer of Paris 2024, and Edouard Donnelly, the executive director of operations, were both raided this week.

The offices of a Paris-based consulting firm, Keneo, that the two men founded was raided on Wednesday.

That followed the first wave of police raids at the organizing committee's headquarters on Tuesday and at the offices of Solideo, the company responsible for the construction of Olympic sites.

The searches are part of two investigations into contracts awarded for the Games, opened by the French National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) in 2017 and entrusted to the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offences.

A spokesman for prosecutors has said the probes concerned "illegal conflict of interest, misuse of public funds and favoritism."

AFP has contacted Thobois and Donnelly for comment.

French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera said on Friday it had not been "an easy moment for the (organizing committee's) teams, obviously."

"They have cooperated fully and they will continue to do so," she added.