Rastignac? Grandet? Swindler? Arsène Lupin? Ponzi scheme
concerning letters and manuscripts? The adventures of Gérard
X, formidable businessman, founder and manager of the Aristophil
company, were abruptly interrupted in November 2014, with the
search of the company premises and its property by the judicial
police.
The company was put into receivership on February 16 2015, and
on 4 March of the same year Gérard X was indicted for
deceptive marketing practices, organised fraud, laundering, breach
of trust, and misuse of corporate assets. At that point, the
Aristophil saga became a problem, if not a scandal.
The vast majority of 18,000 people who invested (usually through
joint ownership) in the letters and manuscripts sold by the company
risked losing a large part of the investment, in what might
constitute a scam amounting to a loss of 1 billion Euros.
