Champagne heir 'conned' out of fizz and fortune after swallowing offer to be 'secret agent'

A French policeman tasked with protecting VIPs is among five charged with swindling a Champagne heir out of his bubbly and fortune by convincing him he had been recruited as a secret agent.

The five, including an interior ministry staffer,  are accused of luring the gullible producer of 450,000 bottles per year into handing over tens of thousands in fizz and cash. The money was supposed to pay for a raft of increasingly outlandish “missions” they claimed involved the Moroccan royal family, ex-US president Barack Obama, the United Nations and a part in a film with Alain Delon.

The men face charges of "abuse of weakness” and “extortion” of Hugues B (whose full name has not been disclosed) - a psychologically frail individual with “megalomaniac delusions” who they mockingly referred to as VIM (Very Important Madman), according to the indictment seen by Le Parisien.

Prosecuting judges say the plaintiff squandered his fortune on being fooled into buying fast cars and a plane the gang said was a gift from Mr Obama, as well as handing over crates of his best champagne to secure “massive deals” with top international figures that never materialised.

He only broke the "spell" when facing bankruptcy, they say.

In all, the group are accused of bamboozling the Champagne heir into handing over €135,000 (£120,000) over five years.

They deny wrongdoing and claim the whole thing was a vast “joke”.

The alleged mastermind was an officer known only as Ahmed Z who had worked for France’s protection service of high-profile personalities, SPHP, before being dismissed after an internal inquiry.

Fascinated by espionage, his “socially isolated” and “credulous” alleged victim fell under the charm of the policeman in 2007. A local domestic intelligence agent, Ahmed Z was tasked with protecting the entourage of the Moroccan royal family when in France as well as the country’s chief rabbi.

Given his high-level contacts, the officer convinced his new “friend” to hand over almost 50,000 bottles of his finest champagne and €40,000 in “marketing fees” to try and secure contracts with such figures, say investigators. “He only wanted the best,” the producer is cited as telling them.

He was taken on a high-speed spin around Paris and introduced to “one of France’s police chiefs” - in fact, a lowly interior minister secretary allegedly in on the scam.

They discreetly proposed he become a secret contact of the Moroccan royals on condition of learning Arabic at punitive hourly rates and flew him to Marrakesh where the royals mysteriously failed to show up. The people he did meet called him VIM. “Everyone laughed, but Ahmed told me it meant beauty, wisdom and intelligence,” he recalled.

He failed to smell a rat despite increasingly spurious requests, including bottles for “the emperor of China” and an Audi 5.

In return, they pledged a role in the next Delon film and a job as scriptwriter for the UN. “Ahmed promised me to keep it a secret as these were very coveted political positions,” he is cited as saying.

The piece de resistance came when they claimed Mr Obama had awarded him the honorific title of “intergalactic president of the world” and a plane. All he had to do was pay €20,000 to get it to France, which he duly wired.

Hughes B pressed for charges in 2012 when his champagne house went into liquidation. “I only realised I’d been swindled when I lost my company,” he told investigators.

Psychologists told investigators he was suffering from “very active delusions” and were surprised he hadn’t been placed under judicial guardianship due to his frail state.

“Usually, in this type of case you get the weak exploiting the even weaker,” the plaintiff’s lawyer Marie Dosé told Le Parisien.

“In this case, they methodically fleeced him like true professionals and refined psychologists. It’s despicable.”