High-Stakes Poker Player and Fraudster Found Guilty of Kidnapping

08:35
21 Jul

Arnaud Mimran has been found guilty of kidnapping and sentenced to 13 years in prison. The French businessman, billionaire socialite and high-stakes poker player has seen his world collapse around him over the last few years, and now it’s all going from bad to worse.

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Busted Again!

This latest prison sentence is just another in a long line of offences. Mimram was already serving an eight-year stint behind bars for a complex VAT fraud that diddled the various treasuries out of €1.6 billion in unpaid taxes.

His ambitious deceitfulness was more than worthy of a high-stakes poker player. His businesses would purchase tax credits in countries that do not collect VAT and then sell them in a jurisdiction that does. With a 90-day time limit to file VAT payments in France Mimran would move the funds off-shore.

While he was stewing over this particular case in his cell, in April 2021, Mimran was indicted for two murders—the driver of French high-stakes cash game player Cyril Mouly, and his ex-father-in-law.

And this latest mess relates to the kidnapping of Swiss financier Yomi Rodrig in 2016. Rodrig claims he was bundled into the boot of a car and forced at gunpoint to buy millions of dollars worth of shares in a shell company controlled by Mimran.

The bizarre case took an unexpected turn when the kidnapping gang leader was murdered outside his home leaving the group leaderless and seeing no other option to release Rodrig who then went straight to the police after being told he was supposed to have been “disposed of.”

Mimran isn’t a well-known player in the poker world but he was one of the original entries to the Big One for One Drop in 2012, won by Antonio Esfandiari. This was the first ever seven-figure buy-in live poker tournament, attracting many rich businessmen, but Mimran ended up withdrawing and forfeiting his $50,000 deposit.