PARIS, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- France's longest-running political corruption scandal has left 23 former executives of Elf oil company and their associates doing time or paying fines.
The London Telegraph reported Thursday that Loik le Floch-Prigent, 57, Elf's chief executive between 1989 and 1993, authorized the embezzlement of $352 million while Elf was state-owned.
The money went on bribes for politicians and middlemen and lavish lifestyles for senior Elf executives.
Floch-Prigent was jailed for five years and fined $435,000.
Nadhmi Auchi, a British billionaire, was given a two-year suspended prison sentence and fined $2.34 million. Auchi, who fled his native Iraq under Saddam Hussein, was found guilty of accepting illegal commissions from Elf worth $84 million.
Auchi turned himself in to French authorities in May after Britain refused to extradite him for the trial.
"At the time, Elf was a public company, owned by all French citizens, who can indirectly consider themselves victims of the offenses," the judges said in their ruling.
Elf was created by General Charles de Gaulle as a rival to British and U.S. oil companies overseas. He allowed it to have a "black box" of secret funds, enabling the company to pay bribes for contracts. But political parties came to see the black box as an excellent means of funding.
