By New York Post (World News) | Created at 2025-03-21 21:00:16 | Updated at 2025-03-22 17:04:33
20 hours ago
The media tycoon who has financially backed artists like Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift, and Rihanna is being sued for allegedly using corruption, fraud, and money laundering to build a vast African business empire.
French investor Vincent Bolloré, the largest stakeholder in Universal Music Group, pilfered money from impoverished communities across the Atlantic even as he financed some of the biggest names in American music, claims the lawsuit filed in a French court and made public this week.
The plaintiff is an alliance of organizations from five countries called “Restitution for Africa,” which alleges the 72-year-old billionaire and one of his sons obtained shipping rights in various African ports via bribes and under-the-table deals — including illegally backing two presidents and dolling out cushy jobs to officials’ family members.
Bolloré and his son — who took over the company, Bolloré Africa Logistics, in 2019 — then “laundered” the ill-gotten gains by selling the company for more than $6 billion in 2022, the complaint alleges.
Restitution for Africa asked the court to seize the proceeds from the sale and redistribute them to communities in Togo, Guinea, Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Cameroon — the countries where most of the alleged corruption took place.
Bolloré has a sprawling media empire in France and he and his investment firm Vivendi acquired a 28% combined stake in Universal Music Group in 2021.
But Bolloré’s companies and investment partners had been major players in African markets years before he staked a claim in American music.
For years, global authorities have investigated his myriad African companies and their subsidiaries for corruption and human rights abuses.
Bolloré was investigated for secretly financing presidential candidates in Togo and Guinea in the 2000s, both of whom awarded his company lucrative port rights after being elected.
In 2023, some of Switzerland’s largest pension funds blacklisted his Bolloré’s Group conglomerate over years of alleged human rights abuses by its palm oil and rubber partners, including land-grabbing, bulldozing villages, and turning a blind eye as overseers sexually exploited plantation workers, according to Mongabay.
Universal Music Group and Vivendi did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
