Organisers of the Paris 2024 Olympics said on Thursday their headquarters had been raided on Wednesday by the country’s national financial prosecutor and a judicial source said the raid, which also targeted event management firms, were part of an ongoing probe into alleged favoritism.<\/p>\n
“Paris 2024 confirms that the PNF (Parquet national financier) visited its headquarters on Wednesday October 18 and obtained all the information it requested,” the organisers said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“Paris 2024 is cooperating fully with the investigation, as it has always done.”<\/p>\n
A judicial source said the raids were part of a probe opened into suspicion of “illegal taking of interest, favoritism and concealment” in the award of several contracts.<\/p>\n
This is the 2nd time this year that the Paris Games office has been raided. On June 20, the national financial prosecutor’s office (PNF) said the Paris 2024 headquarters were raided amid a preliminary investigation launched in 2017 into contracts made by the Summer Games’ organising committee.<\/p>\n
The headquarters of SOLIDEO, the public body responsible for delivering Olympic and Paralympic infrastructure, were also being searched amid a preliminary investigation dating back to 2022, following an audit by the French Anti-Corruption Agency, the PNF added.<\/p>\n