French prosecutors fly to Mauritius to question Madagascar tycoon Mamy Ravatomanga

France's Parquet National Financier has sent prosecutors to Mauritius to question Madagascar tycoon Mamy Ravatomanga in person, according to Le Quotidien de La Réunion, in the latest escalation of a multinational investigation that has already seen three international arrest warrants issued against him in Madagascar and his assets frozen across multiple jurisdictions.

The deployment of PNF investigators to Mauritius represents a significant intensification of French involvement in the Ravatomanga case. The PNF, France's specialist financial crimes prosecutor's office responsible for cases involving complex money laundering and fiscal fraud, opened its original investigation into Ravatomanga in 2016 after allegations that he had acquired property in the Paris suburbs through offshore arrangements involving companies in Dubai, Singapore and Mauritius. That investigation was separately closed in August 2023. The current PNF engagement with the case is conducted within the framework of the Joint Investigation Team established in April 2026 between Mauritius's Financial Crimes Commission and the PNF, with coordination handled through Eurojust, the European Union's judicial cooperation agency.

Ravatomanga has been held in Mauritius since his arrest on October 24, 2025, following his flight from Madagascar on a private Cessna jet on October 12, as protests against the Rajoelina government intensified and military units defected to join the demonstrations. He arrived at Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport without a landing slot, citing a fuel emergency, and was arrested by the Financial Crimes Commission shortly after. The FCC has frozen approximately $180 million held in two Mauritian banks, his Mauritian accounts and business interests.

The Madagascar Anti-Corruption Pole has since issued three separate international arrest warrants against him. The first, in February 2026, relates to alleged fraud in the lychee export sector involving eight individuals and 12 companies across export campaigns running from 2019 to 2026. The second, in March 2026, targets 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. The third relates to a broader alleged corruption network across Madagascar's mining sector with investigators estimating financial damage to the Malagasy Treasury in the tens of millions of dollars.

Multiple Sodiat Group subsidiaries have been placed under provisional judicial administration by Madagascar courts. The Ravatomanga family formally contested the court-appointed management of those businesses, arguing the owners were never consulted. His security company Amarante International connection was severed earlier in June 2026 when the French firm cut ties with his business network as the legal pressure intensified.

Ravatomanga founded Sodiat Group in 1990 as a transport company and built it into Madagascar's most diversified private conglomerate across oil, construction, hospitality, media, health, agriculture and import-export. Forbes named him Madagascar's second richest man in 2017. His close relationship with former President Andry Rajoelina made him one of the most powerful private citizens in Madagascar for nearly two decades. The fall of the Rajoelina government in October 2025 and the subsequent legal actions targeting him represent one of the most dramatic reversals of fortune in the history of African business.