The former midfielder of the Algerian selection, Walid Mesloub, was convicted in Brittany on Tuesday in a case of money laundering and concealment of money laundering.
Usually far from the media radars, Walid Mesloub’s name is spilling ink this week. Yesterday the Criminal Court of Lorient, the former Fennec, was found guilty of facilitating the purchase, exchange or resale of luxury cars to a drug trafficker, Mr Van Thang N (38), nicknamed the “Chinese”.
The “banker” of the “Chinese”
On Monday, April 4, the former Lensois was invited to appear at the counter of the court of Lorient for a hearing. According to The team, the 36-year-old player is said to have assisted the main defendant in numerous colossal transactions involving various vehicles: Range Rover Evoque, Audi S1, RS4, RS6, Mercedes AMG C63S, GLE63S, GLC43 or even a Lamborghini Huracán, estimated at €180,000 .
Mesloub is also said to have received significant transfers from certain relatives of Van Thang N. Through these holdings, he would thus have served as a banker for a drug trafficking network.
† I regret all this because it is not the image of me that I want to give to my children, nor to the future footballers I train today. † he confessed.
Yet he felt that he ” not only undergo the proposals » and that he also « in an offer position to facilitate the acquisition of vehicles †
Following these charges, the former player was given a suspended 18-month prison sentence. He was fined 30,000 euros and seized 75,000 euros.
Victim of his ignorance
It was in 2018 that Walid Mesloub met Van Thang N. accidentally “when he had just arrived in Lorient. † I was looking for a quad for my son, he sold one. We met and things went well.” he specified. An encounter that later became a business.
† When I arrived in Lorient, with my wife and my three children, I knew no one, he remembers† We shared a passion for beautiful cars with him. Yes he made money, for me it was from car sales and real estate business he told me he had in Thailand. But I’m not a researcher, I don’t poke into people’s lives to find out what they’re doing.
During his trial, the Algerian admitted that “Le Chinois” used his identity and that several cars in his name were registered without his knowledge. In this regard he says: He had my ID. He used it to make the gray card †
The former Le Havre was thus the victim of his ignorance and he never knew anything about the illegal activities of the main defendant, in his words: “JI have been negligent, I have not seen evil. I’m sad and I’m sorry I’m here today. †
Mesloub narrowly escapes. This affair could have put an end to his career as an assistant coach of the Lens reserve team. His contract states that if convicted, he will be fired. However, he got the non-registration of this conviction in his criminal record.
DZfoot
