On 8 July 2024, Marc Crochet, CEO of Caritas Luxembourg, returned to the office after nearly six weeks on a pilgrimage. By that point, €59 million had already disappeared and the fraud was still ongoing.
Throughout the week, the four members of the management team had several discussions about the charity’s difficult financial situation. Yet it would take another nine days before the fraud was finally uncovered. What went wrong?
Listen to Episode 3 with English subtitles in the video below, or read the full transcript.
Léonardo Kahn Monday, 8 July 2024, 8 a.m. Caritas’ CEO, Marc Crochet, is back at work after nearly six weeks away on a pilgrimage.
Marc Crochet When I got back, we noticed that we were overdrawn on our accounts, with no explanation as to why. So we set about finding an explanation. That took us a week.
Léonardo Kahn It is the start of a week, in which the four members of the management team have multiple conversations about Caritas’ financial situation. The accounts are deep in the red and there are signs left and right that something is amiss. And yet, it will be a further nine days before it becomes apparent that over the past five months, €61 million has been stolen from the organisation. How is that possible?
My name is Léonardo Kahn and this is Scene Change, the 100.7 documentary podcast. Our second series of Scene Change is called The Caritas Affair. Across eight episodes, we will chart the timeline of a scandal that was a case of one misstep after another. An investigation by Pia Oppel and Jean-Claude Franck.
Episode 3: The Management.
The first lot of money is stolen from Caritas in February 2024. After that, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) goes to the bank again and again to borrow money. She claims she is a victim of fraud. The only thing that’s for certain is that all of the money is wired to Spanish bank accounts before winding up in the hands of a criminal gang.
It is now July and we are getting closer and closer to the day the Caritas fraud is uncovered – Tuesday, 16 July 2024. Pia, Jean-Claude, why does it take a further nine days after Marc Crochet’s return for the fraud to be exposed?
Jean-Claude Franck To answer that, we need to analyse that week in more detail, so we spoke to people from Caritas who could give us an inside view of an ordinary week at the office.
Pia Oppel An easy enough question to begin with, can you briefly introduce yourself?
Tom Brassel I’m Tom Brassel, I was Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Caritas until the end of October.
Pia Oppel Tom Brassel is a trained psychologist. He joined Caritas in 2017. In 2022, CEO Marc Crochet suggested promoting him to COO. In that role, he was responsible for the roughly 400 employees who looked after homeless people, asylum seekers, and child refugees.
I visited Tom Brassel at his home at the end of January. Notes about what happened at Caritas last year plaster the walls of his office.
Pia Oppel That’s a timeline there, right?
Tom Brassel Yes, it is, that was my first timeline. I was trying to familiarise myself with the different pieces of the puzzle, what happens when, how, where. Because, what I did know was just the tip of the iceberg, the other 90 per cent I would only learn about over time.
Pia Oppel It wasn’t an easy decision for Tom Brassel to give us an interview. He needs to find a new job, so his main concern now is to look forwards, not backwards. He is struggling with everything that happened. And feels like he was hung out to dry by the higher-ups.
Tom Brassel I don’t want to come out of this story a bitter man.
I’m married with two children, grown-up children, I’ve got friends and so on. And they really don’t deserve to have a sort of bitter dad, friend, husband who only sees the worst in everyone.
Jean-Claude Franck These conversations, with the people who are at the heart of this story, allow us to describe the events with as much nuance as possible. It’s important that the people involved get to tell us their version of events. That’s what we told the four members of the management team.
Léonardo Kahn Tom Brassel did decide to grant you an interview in the end. What were the responses you got from the other management team members?
Jean-Claude Franck The others didn’t want to do an interview. Or at least not a longer interview, because Marc Crochet did speak to us live on the air last July.
Pia Oppel So we sent the three of them all our questions. And each of them reacted in a slightly different way. The Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) sent us a detailed written response.
Jean-Claude Franck We’ve been talking to the CEO more frequently in recent months, but a lot of his responses are quite general and lacking detail.
Pia Oppel In the case of the CFO, we’ve only made contact via her lawyer who has replied to some of our questions.
Jean-Claude Franck Basically, what we want to stress is that they’ve all been given a right of reply to everything we’re discussing on this podcast.
Pia Oppel It’s also worth mentioning that none of the four members of the management team is still working at Caritas. For the sake of simplicity, however, we’ll be referring to them here by their former titles.
Jean-Claude Franck There is also one point which the members of the management team do seem to agree on. And which others from inside Caritas have described to us in the same terms. That this isn’t just a story about fraud. This is a story about an organisation that was in a bad way even before the fraud started.
Tom Brassel As in, we were doing a major retool.
Pia Oppel There was a lot going on at Caritas in general during the time period we’re interested in – which is important for understanding the events in the week before the fraud is uncovered.
Léonardo Kahn OK, then before we dive into the timeline of that week in July when Marc Crochet comes back from holiday, let’s get a bit of context. What do we need to know about the way Caritas functions?
Jean-Claude Franck The last few years at Caritas have been dominated by two things. Firstly, the organisation was without a director for half a year, until Marc Crochet joined as CEO in 2021.
Tom Brassel And on the ground, you could just tell that there hadn’t been anyone ‘steering the ship’ for some time, maybe longer.
Pia Oppel The second key point is that the organisation has been undergoing internal restructuring recently and has grown enormously, especially in the last few years. A lot of people from Caritas made sure to point that out.
Tom Brassel A number of different areas had been growing rapidly. Our activities with refugees, for example, absolutely exploded, even before the war in Ukraine. And they just never got out of crisis mode.
I mean, they had some super motivated go-getters. But they also had people burning out because the conditions they were working under were unbelievably stressful.
We had some good conversations about it with our board of directors, they were shocked and they gave us, me and Marc Crochet, the mission to change things. And to restore the Caritas values somewhat.
Léonardo Kahn So Caritas has grown massively and at one point there’s no-one at the helm. And the retool Tom Brassel was talking about, was that about improving the quality of the work on the ground?
Jean-Claude Franck Exactly, that was one of the main focuses. There were other challenges too. The key one for us is that over in Finance, it was absolute chaos.
Pia Oppel Which was a problem for the entire organisation. On a day-to-day basis, for example, Caritas was unable to get an overview of what its spending looked like compared to what had been budgeted.
Jean-Claude Franck That issue was being addressed. At the start of 2024, i.e. when the fraud began, Caritas was in the process of restructuring its finance department.
Pia Oppel Meaning the problems hadn’t been resolved yet. But that didn’t stop CEO Marc Crochet from leaning heavily on his CFO. In part because, personally, he wasn’t much interested in financial stuff.
Jean-Claude Franck “That’s what I have a CFO for,” he kept on telling us.
Léonardo Kahn As CEO, Marc Crochet heads up the management team, so he’s one of the most important characters in our story. Let’s take a quick moment here to talk about him. What do we need to know about Marc Crochet?
Jean-Claude Franck Marc Crochet is 56 years old. Before joining Caritas, he worked for the Red Cross for 28 years, taking up the role of Deputy CEO in 2013.
Pia Oppel Eight years later, in 2021, he joins Caritas as CEO. The move to a Catholic organisation surprised a lot of people because Marc Crochet makes no secret of the fact that he is a member of a Freemasons’ lodge.
Léonardo Kahn The Freemasons, can you explain who they are briefly?
Pia Oppel Marc Crochet is a member of the Grand Lodge of Luxembourg. That might sound highly secretive, but it’s essentially a study group with spiritual leanings for men who believe staunchly in humanistic values. That’s the short version, anyway.
Jean-Claude Franck And while the Freemasons don’t have a problem with religion per se, the Catholic Church definitely has a problem with freemasonry. So the diocese was consulted about Marc Crochet’s recruitment first, but ultimately they agreed to his appointment.
Pia Oppel And Marc Crochet actively sought to have a closer relationship with the Church while at Caritas. For example by co-organising pilgrimages for the homeless with the Church.
Léonardo Kahn And Marc Crochet is also going on his own pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella in May/June 2024. The one he comes back from in early July, just before the fraud is exposed.
Pia Oppel Exactly, but Marc Crochet does more than just go on pilgrimages. He is actively involved in church life. He was Vice President of the Diocesan Pastoral Council, a body which consults on the development of the Catholic Church in Luxembourg.
Jean-Claude Franck Essentially, what you can say of Marc Crochet is that he is extremely well-connected. He was Vice President of the Federation of Social Actors, a sort of lobby organisation aimed at the sector’s employer association. He also sits or sat on the board of directors of a number of other organisations, such as Sécurité Routière and the Fondation La Luxembourgeoise.
Pia Oppel And there’s no doubt Marc Crochet is someone who cared deeply about Caritas’ social work.
Michael Feit I think the difference-maker was that Marc Crochet is an extremely dedicated individual. Dedicated to people in need. The people were more important than the process and I admired that in him
Pia Oppel Michael Feit has been with Caritas for nearly 30 years, working as their Director of International Cooperation. His description is a pretty good summary of what others have told us about Marc Crochet.
Michael Feit He was incredibly invested in appeals and all of that. Everything around Caritas’ public image as such was hugely important to him.
And during the crisis in Ukraine and the earthquake in Turkey, we were able to reap the benefits in terms of donations.
Léonardo Kahn So, you’ve set the scene. We know about the major works that were underway at Caritas. And what sort of priorities the CEO had. And that personally he had little time for financial matters. We rejoin the story in the week of 8 July. The week when Marc Crochet comes back from holiday, but the fraud still hasn’t been discovered. How does that week play out?
Pia Oppel Marc Crochet is in the office at eight a.m. and talks to his Chief Human Resources Officer first thing.
Léonardo Kahn We’ve not heard much about her so far. What do we need to know about her?
Jean-Claude Franck She joined Caritas in 2012 from the private sector. She was promoted to CHRO at the end of 2022. So she is the newest member of the four-person management team.
Pia Oppel We have agreed, however, not to disclose her name because she wasn’t a public figure prior to the scandal and wants it to stay that way.
Léonardo Kahn So, Marc Crochet is talking to her on the Monday morning after he gets back from holiday.
Pia Oppel Exactly. And she’s told us that Marc Crochet was raving about his pilgrimage. Eventually, the conversation shifts to Tom Brassel, the COO, who the CHRO explains is worried about Caritas’ finances and the retool in general.
Jean-Claude Franck The CHRO says that at that point Marc Crochet says, “Tom Brassel was stressed when I left. He needs to calm down. I, for one, am zen right now.”
Pia Oppel When pressed on the issue, Marc Crochet says that when he got back from the Camino, he did indeed notice that the COO and CHRO were stressed out, unlike him who had just been on a kind of spiritual journey.
Jean-Claude Franck Looking back, he realises that he didn’t take it seriously enough. He had so many things on his to-do list. He could have found more time that week to clarify what exactly these lines of credit were about.
Léonardo Kahn What happens on that Monday morning after this conversation between Marc Crochet and the CHRO?
Jean-Claude Franck So, at nine a.m., Marc Crochet has a meeting with his COO. Tom Brassel had asked for one so that he could give his boss a run-down of everything that had happened in the six weeks he was away.
Tom Brassel I’d drawn up a five-page handover, I think it was, with a number of different points. There was a huge section on our Operations which included some Finance aspects as well, because I had questions: how can she being doing all this stuff with the lines of credit? Etcetera, etcetera.
Jean-Claude Franck Their meeting ends up being way shorter than planned. Because something else comes up, meaning the CEO is otherwise indisposed. The lines of credit were addressed briefly, but that was it.
Léonardo Kahn Let’s just recap quickly: In June 2024, two contracts are signed for lines of credit. One with BGL BNP Paribas for €16 million, and one with Spuerkeess for €10 million. And Tom Brassel signs both contracts.
Jean-Claude Franck Exactly, he co-signed each with the CFO. Mind you, the CHRO also signed a document for the Spuerkeess contract, regarding the guarantee for the line of credit.
Pia Oppel The situation, which we analysed in more detail last episode, is this: On 5 June, just after coming out of a meeting with the board of directors, Tom Brassel is approached by the CFO who asks him to co-sign the BGL contract.
Tom Brassel To which I said: Coming, hang on a sec. But then I also took a moment to consult with Marc Crochet who said these things can happen, could be the money was allocated incorrectly. Or alternatively, there might be a lot going on with international activities and maybe one or two things at a national level as well. And for that reason, it might happen from time to time that Caritas takes out a line of credit, we don’t have to use it, but he’ll sort it out, voilà.
Pia Oppel So what exactly is the explanation you get from the CFO at that moment?
Tom Brassel I asked her: What is it you want me to sign here? And why do we need lines of credit? And she told me, well, it was just that we needed some security so that we could continue making payroll in case the money didn’t come in. There was never any mention of the fact that the money was already gone.
When I sign off on a line of credit, it never even occurs to me that at the point, at which I put pen to paper, the money has already been spent. I only found that out later.
And the way I understood it, and also the CEO when he gave me the green light, was that we didn’t even have to use them. They were there just in case.
Jean-Claude Franck Marc Crochet also confirmed during a live radio interview with us in July, after the fraud had been exposed, that Tom Brassel had gone to his boss for reassurance.
Marc Crochet I think I had a single phone call, because my colleagues respected the fact that I was on holiday. I was told we had a problem, we likely wouldn’t be able to cover payroll and we needed to go and find a line of credit. So I said, make it happen.
Christiane Kleer And you didn’t find it strange that there was still no money?
Marc Crochet Of course, I did. But I was a long way away and had no control over what was happening. I was worried, but I wasn’t suspicious.
Jean-Claude Franck Tom Brassel also says that it wasn’t just his boss he went to for reassurance, he also reached out to a board member, Pit Bouché, Vice President of Foundation Caritas Luxembourg and President of the NGO Caritas Accueil et solidarité.
Tom Brassel So that was 6 June, that’s when I told him that I’d spoken to Marc Crochet and then signed off on a line of credit. And I told him what Marc’s read of the situation was.
I had another, longer catch-up with him at the end of June, over lunch. And I used the opportunity to again address a lot of the issues at greater length. And one of the main issues was specifically these lines of credit.
Pia Oppel Pit Bouché declined to comment on this. But what is clear is that at this point in time, none of this information is reaching other board members. Their next major meeting isn’t on the calendar until mid-July.
Jean-Claude Franck The board of directors is, in principle, the highest authority in the organisation. Its members are responsible for conducting oversight of the management. And it was usually the board that made decisions on lines of credit.
Pia Oppel In this case, however, that didn’t happen. And no-one on the management team thinks to tell the CFO she needs to ask the board to sign off on the lines of credit.
Léonardo Kahn OK, so, Monday 8 July, nine days before the fraud comes to light, Tom Brassel and Marc Crochet have a quick catch-up. Tom Brassel is stressed out, in part because the lines of credit. They discuss the problem briefly, but it’s not resolved. What happens next?
Pia Oppel Well, because the fraud still hasn’t been uncovered by this point, money is still being stolen. Four transfers are made to Spain on the Tuesday. The final €2 million disappear. Even though all the accounts are absolutely maxed out.
Jean-Claude Franck Yet no-one on the management team mentions this on the Tuesday.
Pia Oppel Even though there is a management team meeting at nine a.m., as there is every Tuesday. The first meeting in six weeks where all four members of the management team are present. And as usual, it’s a packed agenda, with the meeting scheduled to last until five p.m.
Tom Brassel The team is made up of the CEO, the CFO and the CHRO, the Chief Human Resources Officer. Plus myself as Chief Operating Officer. It was never dull. Every Tuesday, we’d spend the whole day together.
Jean-Claude Franck Even though there’s more than enough for the CEO to deal with after six weeks away, Marc Crochet only briefly attends the meeting that Tuesday. Due to other commitments.
Léonardo Kahn So Marc Crochet is almost entirely absent those first two days after his holiday: how do you explain that?
Pia Oppel On the one hand, as we already mentioned, it seems as if Marc Crochet’s mind is still to an extent on his pilgrimage.
Jean-Claude Franck And on top of that, his agenda is overflowing with all sorts of other stuff. That week, for example, he was at negotiations for a new collective agreement for FEDAS, the employers’ federation for social organisations, which involves conversations between the trade unions and the Ministry for Family Affairs.
Pia Oppel But then, on Tuesday afternoon, he starts getting nervous. Because he gets a text from the CFO telling him to check his e-mails. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has sent an e-mail, querying the lines of credit.
Léonardo Kahn The Ministry of Foreign Affairs? How did they learn that Caritas had lines of credit open?
Pia Oppel They’re told by Spuerkeess that Caritas has requested a line of credit. Without any mention of the amount, mind you. The bank notifies the government because the state funding given to Caritas was put up as a guarantee for the line of credit.
Jean-Claude Franck This is the first time an external party starts asking questions. And Marc Crochet’s reaction is somewhat panicked. He wants an explanation as to what exactly the problem is with Caritas’ finances. So he schedules a crisis meeting for five p.m. on Wednesday.
Léonardo Kahn Wednesday, seven days before the fraud is exposed. How does that discussion go?
Pia Oppel At the meeting, the CFO gives her management team colleagues one explanation after another as to why the accounts are massively in the red. And still no-one realises that hidden behind these negative balances are the lines of credit.
Jean-Claude Franck Not one of them has twigged that they’ve actually racked up debts. And that in fact the lines of credit weren’t taken out as a safety net, as a way of balancing the books in case their finances don’t pick up soon.
Pia Oppel So the discussion is actually about why Caritas is short of cash in the first place.
Tom Brassel It started off as a very general conversation. The CFO said, well, you know, with the elections and the new government. And that was the first time I pushed back, I said, that’s not possible, that was all sorted out.
Jean-Claude Franck So initially the argument is that there were delays with payments from the government. But there were no delays. A point that was also raised at that meeting.
Tom Brassel Then it was all, she didn’t have a clue herself because the figures she was provided with, someone else gave her incorrect figures, etc etc. And I’m getting more and more stressed.
And then, of course, the spectre of International is raised. Which, again, I pushed back on.
Jean-Claude Franck So the next argument is that Caritas’ international projects are breaking the bank. But none of that was true.
Pia Oppel The only issue not discussed at that meeting is that in February and March, Caritas wired €9 million to Caritas Internationalis. And that between February and July, a further €52 million went to ASAM, one of Caritas’ partners in Turkey.
Jean-Claude Franck As in, that’s where these transfers appeared to be going, as we explained before. Because the CFO entered an incorrect payee. All of that money went to Spain, and then into the hands of a criminal gang.
Pia Oppel But the fact that, officially, in all the preceding months, Caritas was able to make a huge amount of transfers to an ASAM. Did no-one at the meeting address that?
Tom Brassel No. It wasn’t mentioned even once. It actually only came to light when we stumbled across the hundreds of transfers.
Pia Oppel The CHRO doesn’t say much at the meeting. Her explanation is that she didn’t feel confident speaking up. More generally, she didn’t feel comfortable questioning things at management meetings.
Jean-Claude Franck What’s clear is that on that Wednesday in July, she doesn’t mention all the transfers to Spain she signed off on over the preceding months.
Léonardo Kahn Are you saying that, between February and July, the CHRO co-signed all the fraudulent transfers with the CFO?
Jean-Claude Franck Not quite all. Marc Crochet co-signed on a few of them, initially. But yes, it was mostly the CHRO who was asked to sign.
Pia Oppel And she claims the CFO always had an explanation for the transfers and insisted that they be signed off quickly. She also emphasises that finance wasn’t part of her remit.
Jean-Claude Franck Clearly she fails to put two and two together at the crisis meeting on Wednesday. It seems as if the fact that Caritas has wired extraordinary sums of money overseas is simply not discussed.
Léonardo Kahn What is the outcome of that crisis meeting on Wednesday?
Pia Oppel That, for the time being, the problem will remain unresolved. And that for now, the CFO is allowed to go on holiday the week after.
Tom Brassel She had offered to give Marc Crochet a proper explanation once she was back from holiday, and we left it at that. He was fine with that.
Pia Oppel So Marc Crochet is relying on his CFO to bring order to the chaos after her holiday. The same person he has been all too keen to let go on more than one occasion in recent years, any time things went wrong.
Jean-Claude Franck The CEO fails to put the CFO in her place, which is what usually happened at these meetings. Marc Crochet doesn’t notice how unusual the situation is.
Pia Oppel And no-one takes a look at the accounts in order to find a more satisfactory explanation than the ones the CFO offers up that Wednesday.
Jean-Claude Franck There is one thing about the crisis meeting that sticks out, though. Whereas previously the CFO might get angry or cry whenever discussions got a bit more heated, this time she is perfectly calm.
Pia Oppel Would it be correct to say that at all the meetings that week, she was “laid back”? Or how would you describe her then?
Tom Brassel Let’s use your word.. I mean, I think I’m more stressed doing this interview or talking to you than she was during those meetings, yes. During the week of 8 July.
Léonardo Kahn It’s Thursday, 11 July, T-minus six days until the fraud is exposed. It’s now been decided that the CFO has until the end of July, after her holiday, to get the finances in order. Meaning there’s no further discussion of the issue for the rest of the week?
Jean-Claude Franck No, the issue itself was shelved. That was the conclusion reached on the Wednesday. But there was another, slightly different meeting where it could also have been raised.
Pia Oppel Because there was an “offsite” planned for Thursday and Friday. Every three to four months, the management team would take these sorts of meetings outside of Caritas, going away for a couple of days and staying the night.
Tom Brassel When there are so many moving parts that it’s sometimes hard to know where to start and you need to set priorities, and so on, it’s important to have a minimum level of mutual understanding and respect. Because at the end of the day, you’re spending a lot more time with these people than with your own family.
Jean-Claude Franck A quick sidenote here. It’s interesting that the management team went on one of these “offsite” meetings while the fraud was happening. Specifically, in April. By which point, €30 million had already been stolen. Meanwhile, the management team went to Medernach for a couple of days to work in a more relaxed setting.
Pia Oppel At least, we feel it’s important to mention here. Because these were moments where the CFO could have spoken to Marc Crochet in confidence.
Tom Brassel Absolutely. But I’d go further than that. That wasn’t the only time she could have gone to him. His door was always open.
Pia Oppel So, what Tom Brassel is saying is that yes, there absolutely were tensions between members of the management team, plenty of people have confirmed that. But the management team was also working together and was in dialogue the entire time.
Jean-Claude Franck Which is why none of the other three members of the management team understands how it can be possible that, if the CFO has in fact fallen for the scam, that she didn’t try to discuss it with Marc Crochet. So her closest colleagues are really struggling to comprehend her behaviour.
Léonardo Kahn OK, so what you’re saying is that there were moments, especially during these longer “off sites”, where the atmosphere was more relaxed, where you could talk to your colleagues away from all the noise. And that if the CFO had spoken to Marc Crochet about his unusual project during the “offsite” meeting in April, then maybe the fraud would have been uncovered sooner.
By July, the pressure has really ramped up. At this point, the CFO has opened up lines of credit and wired €61 million to Spain. And bigger conversations are being had about Caritas’ finances. So the question is this: There’s an “offsite” in July, why isn’t the issue raised?
Jean-Claude Franck Well, for once, there’s a simple explanation. Even though it had been in the calendar since April, Marc Crochet cancels the event at short notice on Wednesday evening, citing time constraints.
Léonardo Kahn And the management team doesn’t meet again at all that week?
Pia Oppel No, they do. There’s one final meeting on Friday. But there’s no more discussion of the lines of credit. Even though it’s the last day before the CFO goes on holiday for two weeks.
Léonardo Kahn So, we’ve reached the end of the week and now the CFO is off on her summer holidays. It takes until the following Tuesday for the fraud to come out. What happens on the day before that, the Monday?
Jean-Claude Franck So on the Monday, 15 July, the board of directors has one of its regular meetings.
Pia Oppel The line of credit isn’t listed on the agenda. But then Marc Crochet raises it right at the end of the meeting, under Miscellaneous.
Tom Brassel He gives one figure, two figures, then a third because with the lines of credit, it wasn’t entirely clear. What’s been used so far, what hasn’t? And so on.
And then the board of directors responds, somewhat irritated I felt, saying: what is this, how much, and that can’t possibly be, and why?
And it quickly ends up with the CEO being given an order and told: Okay, you’ve got three months to clear this up with your CFO.
Pia Oppel What that means is he has three months to decide if the CFO might need to be let go.
Jean-Claude Franck That’s actually recorded in the minutes from the meeting. But the board wants more information on the lines of credit ASAP.
Léonardo Kahn And the CFO is already on vacation. Meaning Marc Crochet has to take a closer look at Caritas’ finances himself?
Jean-Claude Franck Yes, but he doesn’t do so straight away on the Monday. Which is all the more astounding, given that Caritas is tipped off about the theft that same day by an anonymous informant.
Pia Oppel Around five p.m., shortly before the board meeting began, Caritas received an e-mail entitled “Urgent Fraud Alert - Act Immediately!”.
Anonymous I am writing to you anonymously to alert you to an extremely serious financial fraud affecting your association. Tens of millions of euros have been diverted from your bank accounts over the past several months, with transfers destined for Spain. It is absolutely imperative that you act immediately.
Jean-Claude Franck Caritas should contact the banks and freeze their accounts, the informant says.
Anonymous By not reporting these facts immediately, you risk being considered complicit in this fraud. The survival of the organisation depends on it. Sincerely, an anonymous benefactor.
Léonardo Kahn OK, so at five p.m. on Monday, this e-mail is sitting in an inbox somewhere at Caritas. The board of directors meets shortly after that. Two questions about this e-mail: Who wrote it? And who was it sent to?
Pia Oppel As far as we know, the whistleblower has not yet been identified. The e-mail is received by the Head of Communications who forwards it to the CEO.
Jean-Claude Franck It seems like she doesn’t do that until the day after it arrives, but we don’t know at what time.
Léonardo Kahn When does Marc Crochet see the e-mail then?
Jean-Claude Franck He says he didn’t see the e-mail until after he uncovered the fraud.
Pia Oppel But the timeline obviously throws up questions. Marc Crochet doesn’t discover the fraudulent transfers before setting off on his pilgrimage in May. Even though €43 million have already been stolen.
Jean-Claude Franck After he gets back from his holiday, there is a whole week of conversations around Caritas’ finances. And still Marc Crochet doesn’t discover the fraudulent transfers.
Pia Oppel He then goes to the board of directors without looking at the accounts in any detail and is unable to offer any precise answers regarding the lines of credit. The day after, Tuesday 16 July, Marc Crochet again skips the management team’s weekly meeting due to other commitments. And yet he still doesn’t notice anything.
Jean-Claude Franck He does, however, go for lunch with Tom Brassel.
Tom Brassel At some point, we broke for lunch. Which I spent with Marc Crochet. I can still remember it clearly.
I don’t know what it was that prompted him to say it. But after lunch, he said, “Let’s go take a look”. Impatiently, you know, “I’m going to go and look at MultiLine myself.” So we sat down, the three of us that is, if I remember correctly, Marc, the CHRO and myself.
Pia Oppel All of a sudden, Marc Crochet logs in to MultiLine, the online banking platform, and discovers what’s been going on. He confirmed as much in July last year in an interview with radio 100.7.
Marc Crochet I logged in to MultiLine and looked at a transfer and it took me a quarter of an hour to find what I was looking for and a matter of seconds to understand what was going on.
Jean-Claude Franck Tom Brassel is there as Marc Crochet is sat at his laptop, scrolling through the more than 100 transfers that had been going to Spain for months, each totalling nearly half a million euros.
Tom Brassel And I can still remember exactly what he said to me: “Tom, look here”. It was some transfer to ASAM. “This cannot be”.
Pia Oppel They put two and two together. And make the decision to file a police report.
Tom Brassel We did it at our head office. A police officer came with his team, and he comments, “Well, well, well, what do we have here then?” It all happened pretty quickly after that. Then the investigators came, executed a search warrant.
Jean-Claude Franck At seven p.m., on 16 July, the board of directors convenes again, despite having just had a regular meeting the evening before. Only this time, every one of them knows that Caritas has been robbed of €61 million.
Léonardo Kahn The story continues in Episode 4 of The Caritas Affair. Thank you, Pia, thank you, Jean-Claude.
Jean-Claude Franck Thank you
Pia Oppel Thank you, Leo.
Léonardo Kahn You’ve been listening to Scene Change, the 100.7 investigative podcast. Scene Change is produced by Pia Oppel, Charlotte Bruneau, Tessy Troes and me, Léonardo Kahn. With additional material by Jean-Claude Franck, Yves Stephany, Semir Demic, Chris Zeien, Ana Angel and Jo Diseviscourt.
Sound and mixing: Sam Erpelding and Ingo Dumlich.
Thanks to Carole Schimmer for voicing the anonymous whistleblower.
To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe to Scene Change wherever you get your podcasts.
And if you have any questions or want to give us feedback, drop us an e-mail at doku@100komma7.lu.
Translation: Rob Myatt and Pia Oppel.
