Madagascar tycoon Mamy Ravatomanga's security firm severs ties with France's Amarante International

A security firm previously linked to Malagasy tycoon Mamy Ravatomanga has severed its relationship with France's Amarante International, the Paris-based private security group that operates across Africa and hostile environments worldwide, according to a report by Africa Intelligence, as the legal walls closing around Ravatomanga's sprawling business empire continue to generate consequences far beyond Madagascar's borders.

The break with Amarante International, a firm founded in 2007 and led by CEO Alexandre Hollander with revenues exceeding €60 million and more than 1,250 permanent staff across 22 global subsidiaries, represents the latest business rupture to flow from the judicial pressure that has engulfed Ravatomanga since Madagascar's Anti-Corruption Pole, known as the PAC, began moving against his assets earlier this year. Amarante operates a Madagascar subsidiary and has built its Africa presence around security consulting, close protection, risk analysis and crisis management for governments and private sector clients in sensitive environments.

Ravatomanga, the founder of Sodiat Group, Madagascar's most diversified private conglomerate with operations spanning import-export, logistics, real estate and agriculture employing approximately 4,000 people, is currently jailed in Mauritius facing charges of money laundering and corruption. Three separate international arrest warrants have been issued against him by Madagascar authorities since February 2026. The first relates to alleged fraud in the lychee export sector, where investigators allege he used his control over the Groupement des Exportateurs de Litchis to manipulate export quotas and facilitate money laundering across export campaigns running from 2019 to 2026. A second warrant relates to his alleged role in corruption surrounding the attribution of mining activities at Kraomita Malagasy, the state chrome mining company, to a private firm in 2023. A third warrant targets his alleged orchestration of a broader corruption network across Madagascar's mining sector, with investigators estimating the financial damage to the Malagasy Treasury in the tens of millions of dollars.

The judicial pressure has already produced dramatic consequences for his business empire inside Madagascar. The PAC placed multiple Sodiat Group subsidiaries under provisional judicial administration in early June 2026, a decision the Ravatomanga family formally contested in a public statement arguing that the owners had never been consulted. The courts simultaneously ordered the freezing of approximately 30 bank accounts across multiple institutions and seized multiple properties registered in his name. A Joint Investigation Team was formally established in April 2026 between Mauritius's Financial Crimes Commission and France's Parquet National Financier, with coordination handled through Eurojust, the European Union's judicial cooperation agency, with French investigators deployed to Antananarivo to work alongside their Malagasy counterparts.

The break between the former Ravatomanga security entity and Amarante International is consistent with the pattern of international business relationships unravelling as the legal and reputational consequences of the case extend beyond Madagascar's borders. Amarante, which markets itself as the benchmark operator in the French private security market and holds certification from the International Code of Conduct Association, would face significant compliance and reputational considerations in maintaining a business relationship with any entity under active judicial administration in a corruption and money laundering prosecution coordinated through Eurojust. The financial consequences of that operational disruption are not yet quantified but the Sodiat Group's broadly integrated structure means that disruptions in any one business unit carry cascading effects across the wider conglomerate.

Ravatomanga built Sodiat Group over decades into a position of dominance across multiple sectors of the Malagasy economy, with close political ties to former administrations that are now the subject of judicial scrutiny in a post-coup environment in which the new authorities have moved more aggressively against business figures associated with prior political patronage networks. His Mauritius detention, his accounts frozen by Mauritian authorities, and the judicial administration of his businesses have combined to produce one of the most consequential corporate crises in Madagascar's modern economic history.