Aldabra Foundation: Obscure fund-rasing caught up in the Bettencourt saga
The D’Arros affair has not finished revealing all the strange deals surrounding Mrs. Lilianne Bettencourt and her close associates. The French media have lately been questioning the role and objectives of an obscure organisation named the Aldabra Foundation, based in the Swiss capital, Geneva.
According to information available on the internet, the Aldabra Foundation was established in 2005 to ensure the preservation of Aldabra and to support the Seychelles Islands Foundation and the creation of an important research institute on the atoll. Its board members are Lars Kristoferson, the chairman, Maurice Loustau-Lalanne, the secretary and most importantly Carlos Vejarano, the organisation’s CEO who was also the right-hand person of Lilianne Bettencourt on D’Arros island.
Vejarano was arrested
and detained in July by
French police who were
investigating suspicions of
money laundering and tax
evasion around the
D’Arros affair. He has been
accused of extorting two million
euros from Bettencourt.
As for the Aldabra
Foundation, investigators are
suspicious that it may be a
screen organisation to use the
name of Aldabra for raising
funds for unclear
purposes. When it was set up
by Vejarano in 2005, the stated
objectives were many and
varied:
- to create a state-of-theart
research institute on the
atoll,
- to provide workspace,
conference facilities and a
museum for natural history
collections.
- to provide a research
vessel equipped to investigate
shallow and deep water
ecosystems and fishery-related
issues.
Five years later, none of the objectives have been met but fund-raising activities have continued. An exhibition was held between May 2008 and January 2009 in the Paris Museum of Natural History inside the Jardins des Plantes Zoo to showcase Aldabra and publicise the Foundation. According to French newspapers covering the Bettencourt revelations, Carlos Vejarano has resigned from the Board of the Seychelles Islands Foundation, an organization chaired by Loustau-Lalanne which is mandated to supervise the preservation of Aldabra.
Source: Regar 9-10-10