For many years, former employees or competitors of Chafic Alywan, the all-powerful boss who was charged and jailed last month, have denounced serious irregularities in his companies’ business operations.
Creating an objective portrait of Chafic Alywan, who was charged and jailed in December as part of an investigation into a corruption network, is a challenge because so many people dislike the 51-year-old. Employees or former employees, competitors and those familiar with the towing service’s inner circle: All denounce “a despicable guy”, says one, “the archetype of the guy who is very tough on the weak and very subservient to the powerful”, chides another.
Lebanese-born Chafic Alywan first came to France in the 1990s. According to our information, he was expelled because of his links to Hezbollah. His own brother holds a high position in the Lebanese Sûreté générale. By marrying a Swiss woman he was able to get a foothold in Europe again. Incidentally, when he was awarded a public contract in 2015, he accidentally discovers that he is registered as a “dangerous person”.
(…) “He is a completely paranoid and megalomaniac character. He often says: there is God and there is me!”. Like the former, Alywan is omniscient and constantly monitors his staff. “He had our SUVs microchipped so he always knew where we were,” recalls one employee, lamenting the “rolling bins” he worked with. (…) Le Parisien
24 hours after the revelation of embezzlement by a tycoon of the Paris towing services, the Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, announced that she had called in the city’s supervisory authority.
On Thursday January 5, the mayor of Paris (PS) announced that she had asked the city’s supervisory authority to “launch an administrative investigation”.
At the centre was Chafic Alywan, the chief of the towing service Inter Dépannage, who ruled over all the southern arrondissements of the capital as well as parts of the Hauts-de-Seine and Seine-Saint-Denis departments. With whom the city cooperated.
Chafic Alywan was charged with “active and passive bribery by a person holding public power”, “illegal representation of interests”, “forgery of public documents”, “violation of professional secrecy”, “misappropriation of a file”, “money laundering” or even “misuse of company assets”. In his wake, a former official of the prefecture of the Hauts-de-Seine department was also charged. Police officers are also suspected of being corrupt.
(…) On the part of the Paris municipality, which awards the contracts to the towing companies, some heads of department of street cleaning are suspected of having been compliant with Chafic Alywan. In June 2021, the king of towing, although known for his brutality and questionable methods, had been awarded lot number 2 for four years, i.e. the suburbs of Foch and Charlety, covering the VIIe, VIIIe, XIIe, XIIIe, XIVe, XVIe as well as the south of the XVe arrondissement. (…) Le Parisien