Frederic Noel and his NordPay company – main partners in Descharreaux money laundering schemes?

Having researched the activity of Laurent Descharreaux, we came to the conclusion that he was not the only one in his “successful” money laundering business and tax fraud schemes. He had partners and the name of his main partner is Frederic Yves Michel Noel, a 43-year-old Frenchman.  

Frederic Noel owns a business -NordPay - with companies set up in Spain and the UK. He even got license for his UK company in 2011. It seems that the UK regulator never cared about Noel’s active participation in a company which owed 2.2 million euro in taxes to the Estonian government.

However, not to sound unfounded, we will share our thought with you. Probably, Frederic Noel is quite an honest man and it is a total fluke that participated in almost half of Descharreaux money laundering projects. And of course in this case it would be very interesting to hear his version of events and his comments on the facts listed below. The email for communication remains the same - private.legal.consults@gmail.com.

Fact No 1

Frederic Noel runs a payment processing business. His major clients are the Frenchmen, but his companies are located outside France whatever the reason (as well as the companies of Laurent Descharreaux who is wanted by Europol for his tax fraud in France) - obviously, to ease tax scam schemes for French clients where transactions in favor of his companies are falling outside of French official bodies’ jurisdiction.

Fact No 2

Laurent Descharreaux is a talented scammer. He is eager to take bankruptcy risks, risks of criminal proceedings, he is even ready to refuse from all human goods and escape to the EU most corrupted country with the lowest standards of living – to Bulgaria – just to be free and continue his illegal money laundering activity. Since Europol put Descharreaux on its wanted list and French police wanted Descharreaux for tax fraud and money laundering (just to remind, Laurent specializes in evasion of tax monies), he felt that he cannot migrate within the EU as easily as before. In civilized EU countries, unlike in Bulgaria, a policemen would not close a case for 5,000 euro “gift” and would not kneel at feet in case you put on (or probably under) the table a pile of  crisp banknotes in amount of 10,000 euro, especially for a person like Laurent Descharreaux, a Europol wanted criminal, as we already blogged. Apart from this, drug-addicted Descharreaux, even considering his persuasiveness, is rarely spotted in company with smart people or large businessmen. Thus, he really needed a partner who could find clients for his money laundering business. A company, offering payment processing solutions is a perfect source of clientele: process your bank card payments and get tax evasion services as a bonus. Two services at a time – what a wonderful marketing tool, isn’t it?

Fact No 3

Work up a sweat laundering taxpayers’ monies from Estonia (2009-2010), both Laurent Descharreaux and Frederic Noel were in Estonia, they had good connections during this time and even afterwards. Both of them left Estonia in 2010 right before the bank accounts of the Estonian Complus Consuling OU (later renamed as Bienvenue OU in order to cover up tracks along with classic reassignment of the company to the strawman-marionette Simeon Ganchev) were arrested by the Estonian tax department. As it turned out, the moment when Descharreaux and Noel left Estonia was doubly successful. Apart from arresting bank accounts of Complus Consulting OU/Bienvenue OU, the tax department has also imputed unpaid taxes in amount of 2.2. million euro and the company got into the list of top 10 debtors of Estonia. However, this did not prevent Noel from getting license from FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) for the payment processing services for his NordPay company (he still holds 33% in this company). By a weird coincidence, Noel got this license almost at the same time when tax department in Estonia assessed uncollected taxes in amount of 2.2 million euro. It seems that Noel simply forgot to mention this fact when he submitted his license request to the UK regulator. Well, he also forgot to mention that he partnered Laurent Descharreaux, who is wanted by Europol.

Fact No 4

After run-away from Estonia, both Descharreaux and Noel continued to work through their new Estonian companies. Estonian government is kind and generous, it holds no grudge for the people who owe it millions of euro (like Descharreaux and Noel) – the debtor is company A, but you can always open company B, right? These new Estonian companies of Laurent Descharreaux and Frederic Noel (and their Bulgarian proxies) are used for the only purpose of tax money laundering by way of “processing solutions” and “IT security services”. The taxes are being moved away from the countries where the tax rate is high – France (33.33%) and Spain (28% until 2015). The illegal activity is carried out under the cover of payment processing services (in case with Noel) and consulting services (in case of Descharreaux). All their companies have the same pattern:

1.    Use of Bulgarian proxies provided by Laurent Descharreax;

2.    All these companies, like Complus Consulting OU (later Bienvenue OU), “forget” to file annual return and are simply deleted from the registry.

Estonian tax department is very generous one: it does not initiate any tax proceedings against automatically deleted companies. Checkmate! For all tax payers in Estonia and especially rest of the Europe: Estonia acts as an offshore zone inside the EU for the tax fraudsters like Laurent Descharreaux and Frederic Noel. It is possible to channel funds through Estonia without paying ANY taxes. Estonian tax department seems to be an old toothless and blind dog that can fall asleep while barking or while chasing a thief. After all, it did “fell asleep” during bankruptcy proceedings worth 2.2 million euro and refused to appeal the deletion of Laurent Descharreaux and Frederic Noel company from register in 2013. We can only guess how many times the tax department had managed to “fall asleep” even before any proceedings had been initiated against hastily opened companies of Descharreaux and Noel and equally hastily deleted ones from registry by means of not submitting annual returns.

Descharreaux firms review: even more countries involved

People from around the globe keep searching the net for the name ‘Laurent Descharreaux’ and telling us more and more striking facts about this person’s ‘business’. These people are his creditors, his former partners, his employees and officials, who investigated his activity.

When we first went into the details of his business, we thought he was quite lucky or, rather, tricky to evade taxes and launder millions of euros in Estonia. But his geography is much wider than we could imagine.

In one of our previous posts we described how Laurent Descharreaux opened and dissolved over 10 legal entities in Estonia. All this helped him to avoid taxes and payments to the creditors in amount of over 2 million euros. And this is just the beginning.

Estonia has already paid 1.4 million euro for its politicians being short-sighted and its administrative system being so imperfect that anyone can get subsidies and then just dissolve the entity for not reporting.

His companies to recall:

Bytes & More OÜ
Smart Direct OÜ
Happy Technologies OÜ
Digital Millenium Solutions OÜ
Consultancy and Outsourcing Resources Europe OÜ
Optimal Security Solutions OÜ
Digital Millenium Ventures OÜ
P&K Consulting OÜ
Bienvenue OÜ
Advanced Automotive Engineering OÜ

The next would be Bulgaria, where Laurent Deschaseaux now lives in a luxurious area of Sofia, the capital of the country, and manages some other companies. Some say that he’s engaged in porn business, but we know only his ‘technological’ one. What a versatile businessman he is!

Complus Consulting BG Ltd
Blackswan Payment Services ЕOOD
Unseen Invest Management
DAZIBAO PUBLISHING
Blackswan Capital EOOD

I bet you need a lot of legal entities to launder as much as you can, despite all those declarations made by the European authorities about anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism measures. And not only in Europe. Canada, USA, UK and some other countries have also cherished a serpent in their bosom.

Black Swan Ventures LLP (United Kingdom)
Digital Millenium Venture Ltd. (United Kingdom)
Unifiedpay Ltd (United Kingdom)
9247-5334 Quebec Inc. (Canada)
COMPLUS CONSULTING (France)
Complus Consulting Inc. (USA)
Dazibao Inc. (USA)

There is much more interesting story hidden behind these names, we’re keen to tell it! Send us an email and we’ll get in touch!

Estonian tax system: how to make millions euro of it

There is no doubt that everyone wants to live in a wealthy country, with great social benefits. It is not a secret that country’s prosperity is guaranteed by not only its intelligent citizens, but mainly by the budget which is eked out by taxes. Taxes go on welfare payments, public debt service, improvement of social facilities and resort services and much more. For this reason, creation of new companies and businesses revitalizes the economy making it more competitive.

Now it becomes clear why many developed countries aspiring to prosperity classify taxes evasion as an economic crime. However, some dishonest businessmen manage to wriggle out of paying taxes. A notorious story about Bienvenue (previous name Complus Consulting OÜ), an Estonian company that promised to create 700 job places (only think about this figure - 700 people!) ended on a dull note leaving people without much-awaited jobs, creditors – without their money, and country – without taxes. We have previously blogged about how that all started. Now let us get into the details, as they will shed the light on quite an interesting story.

A French businessman Laurent Descharreaux came to Estonia, promised to build a huge corporation Complus Consulting OÜ, got subsidies from the government and loans from the local banks. He made everything possible to create a good picture of himself in the media and make a fuss about a bright future of his start-up in Estonia. He was so successful in this that he had got words of support from the social affairs minister of Estonia. Not only he arranged subsidies for the firm of the international scammer laurent Descharreaux but he also had publicly spoken up for him and his venture.

But soon after getting subsidies from the governmental organization and loans from local banks, which were obviously motivated by such an attention from the authorities (particularly the minister of social affairs who decided to give his words of support to the scam company publicly through local media), the firm left its offices and was renamed leaving no traces and contacts for anybody. Laurent Descharreaux renamed the company from Complus Consulting OÜ to Bienvenue OÜ. There is a very interesting fact: his Bulgarian entity had the same name (Complus Consulting BG EOOD) and we have the information that it processed quite big amounts of money through Bulgarian banks, so it’s easy to guess why Estonian Complus Consulting was renamed… to break the link between two entities, one of which most likely laundered money of Estonian taxpayers, and the second one was used as a trap for money with corrupted Bulgarian climate to absorb this dirty money vanished out from Estonian taxpayers.

When the time came, and lenders didn’t get any payment, and authorities didn’t get any report, they started court proceedings against Complus Consulting, which at that time had already been renamed to Bienvenue. This turned to the insolvency case, as there was no money and no one to ask it from. The fact that Complus Consulting OÜ, and later Bienvenue OÜ, had never filed any tax returns, even in the year when it got subsidies from the government, never was an obstacle for the minister of social affairs of Estonia to give public words of support to Descharreaux. This is unclear what was the motivation for the minister to personally support a scam project but it looks they both did well after that: Descharreaux was left untouchable and ran to Bulgaria while the minister of foreign affairs... became minister of justice! What a word - "JUSTICE"! Something that is always far away from international scammers like Laurent Descharreaux.

What happened next is really surprising. The court closed Bienvenue insolvency proceedings started by the Estonian tax office because... the company was deleted from the registry! Now, think again, the company that owes hefty amount to the government was simply deleted from the registry. Is that what usually happens? And the reason why the company was de-registered is simple: it did not file its financial reports to the Registrar. But before de-registration it is needed to get consent from the tax authorities which was actually given. The tax authorities that must act to collect the taxes from companies even did not try to do this and turned the blind eye to Bienvenue’s debts to the government! It seems strange and even illogical, from one point of view though. If we suppose that tax authorities did this on purpose or even that the owner of Bienvenue, Laurent Descharreaux, and the tax authorities were hand in glove, it all can make sense.

So, Bienvenue just fell of the edge of the earth and no one even questioned how and why the company which still owes huge amounts to its creditors metaphorically dissolved into thin air. Obviously, if you lend money, you suppose to get it back, don’t you? And if this does not happen amicably, you try to restore justice by any available means. Face the music, this how they say, right?

Certainly, imperfection of Estonian law system smoothened things down for Descharreaux. But do you think a foreigner could succeed in such a game without local sidekicks? How come that one hand of the tax office tries to get money from the debtor and another gives a consent to delete it from the registry? Do ministers in any country of Europe give subsidies to a dummy firm, which never files any report, and publicly speak for it spurring banks to give loans? Isn’t it corruption in the country where, according to the European Commission survey, its level is considered to be low?