By a moonlight as in broad daylight, the life of Fabrice Vial was broke. It was a night in August 2011. The 43 -year -old has just spent the evening on his 37 m yacht, the Team Vipat anchor in the Gulf of Porto-Vecchio. Installed on the rear deck of the boat, the wealthy businessman – 146th fortune in France in 2006, according to the magazine Challenges – Share a bottle of champagne with a 23 -year -old young woman, met two days earlier at Via Notte, a nightclub popular with Corsican night owls. It is 1 in the morning. The eight crew members left the couple alone, as was the Toulon lawyer Thierry Fradet and his fiancée, which the Var entrepreneur had invited. Suddenly, Fabrice Vial collapses, touched in the back by a bullet that crossed his body. When help arrive, they can only see his death.
Judicial information is open and the investigations entrusted to the gendarmes of the Ajaccio research section. But fourteen years later, the crime remains unclear. In 2008, the interregional jurisdiction of Marseille made a dismissal, thus destroying all hope of one day knowing the truth about this strange assassination. “Either his death benefited someone or we wanted to sanction him. We will never know, ”blows Me Jean-Pierre Darmon, the lawyer who represented the victim’s family until he retired five years ago. However, the latter claims to have his “little idea on the question”. “But without proof, without element and without judicial will”, difficult to discover the identity of the shooter and his motivations one day.
A “very secret” entrepreneur
Three factories in France, one in Spain, one in Romania and one in Bolivia, and 69 stores. Fabrice Vial would have made a fortune by taking up the family business of carpentry in the 1990s. In 2009, he also bought the manufacturer of luxury couch yachts, based on the Arcachon basin in Gujan-Mestras, for 1.5 million euros. The forties ordered his ship to the shipyard using around 300 people, who was then in receivership.
But for some time now, the Vial group has recorded heavy losses: 15.9 million in 2009, 3.4 million euros in 2010. On August 9, 2011, a safeguard plan was presented at the Toulon Commercial Court. The decision was to be rendered on September 22.
In the meantime, Fabrice Vial has decided to agree for a few days of rest in Corsica, where he goes from time to time. The same evening, he embarks, with a few friends, in his private jet. The device lands on the tarmac of Figari airport, in Corsica-du-Sud. Three days later, the rich industrialist was killed on his yacht.
The investigation revealed that the shooter was positioned a hundred meters on a Zodiac, found burnt down a few hours after the facts. For sniper, succeeding in touching your target in such conditions is a prowess. The ball, which probably ended in the sea, has never been found. Me Jean-Pierre Darmon is still convinced that the shooter received “the top” of a well-informed person. “You had to know that Fabrice was on the rear deck. And be able to prepare this operation in a very short time.
The business manager “felt threatened”
Investigators will seek elements in the past of a “very secret” entrepreneur. “He never noted anything, there was no writing. I discovered a lot after his death when I knew him well. He was someone who led his life and his business in an extremely discreet way. He partitioned a lot, ”said the former lawyer for the family of Fabrice Vial. Me Darmon simply remembers that the business manager “felt threatened”. “He was no longer going in his offices, received his suppliers in hotels. »»
As revealed The New Obs In 2020, the gendarmes wondered if the CEO of Vial Carpentry and Couach, unknown to French justice, would not actually have made a fortune thanks to cocaine traffic. A track that did not lead anywhere. They also wondered about possible links with Corsican banditry, in particular because he was “friend” with Sandra Germani, Jean-Luc Germani’s sister and the widow of Richard Casanova, two figures of the island environment. After the publication of this article, Me Darmon wanted to transmit elements to the prosecution. “But that didn’t interest them. »»
Hope with the “Cold Cases” pole
Among the other hypotheses followed, that of a Russian client dissatisfied with his boat, or that of Chinese who planned to acquire the Couach group, indicated Nice morning in a long investigation. “There are extravagant tracks that have been explored. The file made sixty volumes. The gendarmes went everywhere, have explored everything. And they came to the conclusion that they could not prove anything, ”regrets Me Darmon. “They went to South America, to Russia … But I think this affair is much simpler than it seems. There are issues that have exceeded everyone. This is what makes a mystery, an omerta, has established itself, adds the lawyer to retirement. There is a lot of inconsistency in this file because people do not want to speak, there have been a lot of threats. Today, he has “no more contact with his family”, who wanted to “turn the page”.
Jean-Claude, Fabrice’s father, “died of sorrow” a few years ago. “This affair is a total mess, she did a lot of damage to her family and for the company, which has been squandered,” says the former Aixian lawyer. The Vial group put the key under the door in May 2018. The only prospect of one day discovering the truth? A referral to the Nanterre “Cold Case” pole, created in March 2022. “Still, there should be a desire for the family,” said Darmon. But she dropped. Since I was retired, no one has resumed the file. »»
