Fugitive French former oil executive arrested in Tagaytay

A French fugitive alleged to have embezzled millions of dollars from oil giant Elf was arrested yesterday in Tagaytay City following a tip-off, Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo said.

Domingo said Alfred Sirven, a 73-year-old executive at the center of a corruption scandal at Elf Aquitaine, was arrested in his fully furnished home in Barangay Niugan, Tagaytay City at about 2:30 p.m.

Sirven was deported to France aboard Air France at 7:30 last night.

"This is a wonderful country. I leave with much regret. I committed no offense," he told reporters.

He added that he has no money in the Philippines, and that the bank accounts he allegedly keeps were just "fabrications" of the French media.

Sirven has been on the run from French justice since 1997 for alleged embezzlement and operation of a slush fund to buy influence in several illicit deals.

Combined agents of the Bureau of Immigration and National Bureau of Investigation arrested Sirven shortly after airport immigration officials detained his Filipino driver, Roberto Arasa, who flew in from Hong Kong at 10 a.m., Domingo said.

French and Hong Kong authorities as well as the global police Interpol had helped tip off Philippine authorities about his details, including his departure, Domingo said.

Several French detectives have been here for the last four months looking for Sirven, who reportedly entered the Philippines using a passport issued to another, since-deceased Frenchman.

Four international warrants are out for Sirven’s arrest.

In February, he was committed in absentia to stand trial alongside former French foreign minister Roland Dumas in one of several cases arising from the affair.

Dumas is on trial with five others, including his former girlfriend Christine Deviers-Joncour, accused of plundering Elf’s coffers to fund his lavish lifestyle in the early 1990s.

The high-profile trial – the most important of its type in France in recent years – has transfixed the public with its mix of sex, power and money, and cast an unflattering light on the sleaze culture apparently endemic under late President Francois Mitterrand.

Sirven was in the custody of the NBI, the immigration bureau and French police yesterday, Domingo said, adding he would not face any charges in the Philippines.

"We’re telling the whole world that we’re back in business. No longer is the Philippines a haven for alien criminals and fugitives," she told a news conference.

"This is not a safe place for them anymore. Please don’t come here," she added.

Intense media publicity about Sirven’s case made it difficult for police to apprehend the Frenchman, who once boasted he knew enough to "bring down the French republic 20 times over."

Sirven’s Filipina girlfriend, Vilma Aguilando Medina, was a former member of the powerful local Christian sect Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ).

Medina’s two daughters are Iglesia members and the authorities had been trying to seek their help to locate their mother and Sirven, both of whom are believed to own several properties in and around Manila.

Sirven is believed to have entered the Philippines in December 1997 under an assumed name and using the passport of one Robert Lapierre, a Frenchman who had died of cancer, investigators said.

Pierre Goujard, the head of the French police team here, citing intelligence information, said in November that Sirven was likely to have used yet another man’s passport to come here.

He noted that airport immigration authorities had no record of entry for either Sirven or Lapierre in Manila.

Citing intelligence information, Goujard said the bulk of Sirven’s 200 million franc ($27.2 million) loot had been stashed in three local banks under the name of Medina, and a bank in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, the attorney for Dumas said in Paris, Sirven’s arrest should lead to the suspension of the former foreign minister’s trial.

"It would seem impossible that the prosecution would not ask for a suspension," Jean-Rene Farthouat said. — Jose Aravilla, Rey Arquiza