Paris 2024 headquarters raided for second time as probe continues in suspected Olympic contracts fraud

Organizers of next year's Paris Olympics say their headquarters have again been visited by French financial prosecutors who are investigating suspicions of favoritism, conflicts of interest and misuse of funds in the awarding of Olympic contracts.

The Paris 2024 organizing committee said Thursday in a short statement that the national financial prosecution service visited its north Paris offices on Wednesday “and obtained all the information it requested.”

“Paris 2024 is cooperating fully with the investigation, as it has always done,” the statement said.

The headquarters were first searched in June.

Financial investigators have been zeroing in on twenty or so of the many hundreds of business contracts that Olympic organizers have signed as they race to prepare the French capital for 10,500 athletes and millions of spectators at the games that open July 26, 2024.

In an Associated Press interview, chief Paris 2024 organizer Tony Estanguet previously vigorously defended colleagues whose homes also have been searched.

Estanguet insisted that the two financial probes of Paris Games contract awards bear no comparison with corruption and ethics scandals that have for decades dogged the Olympic movement and its flagship money-spinning event, including the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and Rio de Janeiro’s bribery-plagued Games of 2016.

Last month, the chief financial prosecutor said their probes have not revealed any serious corruption or influence peddling and that any potential infractions are “mainly formal.”