Online Reporter
LONDON. – A tycoon who paid for his divorce with a property fraud after his wife left him for Cesc Fabregas has been ordered to pay back £1.3million.
Elie Taktouk married Lebanese model Daniella Semaan in 1998 but they split 13 years later when she dumped him for the ex-Arsenal star.
During a bitter divorce battle, Taktouk lost the £5.5million marital home in Belgravia to his ex and her new partner. The 50-year-old was then jailed for seven years in 2021 over a multi-million pound property fraud.
He was ordered to pay £4.5million in a confiscation ruling two years later following the scam.
A judge ruled Taktouk should serve eight years in jail consecutive to his seven year sentence if the money was not paid in default.
But Taktouk successfully appealed against that order at the Court of Appeal – although was unable to block the £5.5million sale of his former family home to his ex and Fabregas.
He has now been ordered to pay £1.3million at a new confiscation hearing. Kennedy Talbot KC, prosecuting, said: “I am very pleased to say we have reached an agreement which I should tell your honour about. “This agreement that we have reached is that the court should consider making a confiscation order in the sum of £1.3m.
“This figure is between what it is that Mr Taktouk says is available to him and what it is that he would have to prove that he does not have – that is £4.5million.” The court heard previously how Taktouk’s dad Youssef Taktouk was one of the richest men in Ibadan, Nigeria, and was worth around £187million. Both he and brother Dr Wassim Taktouk were shareholders in his father’s company Wasseli.
The prosecutor said Dr Wassim, as the executor of his father’s will, has “agreed to charge his property for the payment of £1.3million”.
He told the court that the revised figure would make “certain” that the confiscation order “would be paid”. – The Sun
Mathew Masinge