Another gambling club closed today in Paris. A bit of history.

Tweet

I gathered information from about 20 different sources to write this post. It seems long, but I have had to omit a lot of things. I hope that it will interest you. The French newspapers are announcing today that the "Cercle Anglais" was closed and five people arrested for money laundering and dissimulated work (the workers were receiving cash besides their wages). The police seized 5 millions Euros in cash. The name of the people arrested does not appear in the newspapers. The "Cercle Anglais" is one of these clubs with a high entrance fee reserved to rich people which are hidden in Paris. To give an idea, many of the sport clubs in the Bois de Boulogne do not even appear on a map of Paris... The history of the gambling clubs in Paris is closely tied to the Corsican mafia. The Corsican mafia is less known than the Sicilian mafia, although they often worked together. During WWII a part of the Corsicans gangsters collaborated with the Nazis, another one with the French Resistance. To sum up shortly, at the end of the war remained mainly in Marseilles : - the Guerini brothers, Barthélémy nicknamed Mémé, who started an international cigarette smuggling with Lucky Luciano, and Antoine, specialized in pimping and drug trafficking. Antoine was receiving opium from Indochine(Vietnam), was converting it to heroin and was sending it to the USA. It was the beginning of what has been called the "French" connection. The Guerini brothers had closed links with the socialist mayor of Marseilles. - Marcel Francisci, nicknamed "the great Marcel", also involved in smuggling and drug trafficking, had closed links with the Republican party of General de Gaulle. He was lending his men to work for the equivalent of the CIA in France, and to ensure the security during the meetings of the party. He obtained in 1947 from the Republicans a law to open gambling clubs in Paris. Casinos were forbidden in Paris since 1920, but the law voted for him was a real gift : these clubs would be considered like "non profit associations", a status a lot better than casinos for money laundering. He moved in Paris and abandoned his previous activities. He opened several gambling clubs with his brother Roland, and bought later with the profits of his "non profit" clubs several casinos, in France and foreign countries : UK, Lebanon, etc. In the 60's the Guerini wanted to enter in the gambling industry and a war started between the two clans. In 1967 Antoine Guerini was killed by 11 bullets in Marseilles, while the Francisci were more lucky : Marcel escaped at two attempted murders and an attack with explosives, and Roland survived after having been badly hurt by a sniper when he was at a political meeting in Corsica. In 1968 the Francisci brothers came out miraculously unscathed of an attack with automatic guns by 5 men of the Guerini clan. A few months later the authors of the attack were killed in a Parisian bar by some men disguised in policemen. At the end of the war, the Guerini clan was exterminated. In 1971 Marcel was named by the US Congress like a member of the French Connection, but he always denied it. He has been killed in 1982 in the parking of his building in Paris. His club, the "Cercle Haussmann" was the most prestigious gambling club of Paris, and has been closed after his death. His brother Roland was owning the "Aviation Club de France" another famous gambling club avenue des Champs-Elysées offering backgammon, blackjack, baccarat, poker and punto banco games. He retired in 1998 to focus on politics in Corsica. He escaped to another attack in 2000 and finally died in his bed in 2006. The "Aviation Club de France" was then directed by his son "Little Marcel" Francisci. This one was born in London and studied economy in Philadelphia, and he obtained in 2003 to have a stop of the World Poker Tour in his gambling club. The WPT stayed there until 2012 and had to leave because the regulations of the WPT about online games were not compatible with French laws. After the closure of a gambling club for money laundering in 2007, the Parisian gambling clubs have been targeted by the ministry of Interior, and many have been closed. "Little Marcel" was the chief of the Republican party in Corsica and president of the Friends of President Sarkozy in Corsica, the "Aviation Club de France" had no troubles until the election of President Hollande. On September 16th 2014 at 6am the police entered in the club for a search and arrested about 10 employees ; at the same time several other people were arrested in France and Corsica. Although the justice authorized later to open the club again, the state refused to renew the authorization. The club was employing 213 people. If the club was owned by Little Marcel Francisci, his president was another Corsican, Charles Pellegrini, a retired policeman who had been at the head of the French police gang unit. Pellegrini told that this presidency was offered by Roland Francisci because their fathers did their military service together. The newspapers articles are telling that among the 5 persons arrested today at the "Cercle Anglais", there are also 2 retired policemen. I cannot tell if they are Corsicans. The Francisci are considered like the benefactors of their little village of Ciamannacce, 132 inhabitants, in the middle of Corsica. Roland, Little Marcel, and since 2014 his sister Felicia Francisci (she lived in New-York until 2003 and studied English Literature in the USA) have been/is mayor of the place. There is only one remaining gambling club in Paris, and its days are probably counted. The picture is a photo of a room of the now dead "Aviation Club de France".