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CANNES

South Korean swaps bitcoins for €2m in fake notes on French Riviera

The deal sounded murky from the start: in exchange for bitcoin worth two million euros ($2.3 million), the wealthy buyer would hand over the equivalent sum in cash in a luxury hotel on the French riviera.

Published: 19 August 2018 18:07 CEST
South Korean swaps bitcoins for €2m in fake notes on French Riviera
A bitcoin ATM at a shopping mall in Singapore. Photo: Roslan Rahman/AFP
The seller, a South Korean businessman with a company specialised in the crypto-currency in Singapore, accepted the proposition nevertheless and met the Serbian buyer in July.
   
But once the transaction was completed in a hotel in the city of Nice, the South Korean realised the 500-euro notes he had been handed were crude, photocopied fakes, police sources told AFP. 
   
After the victim filed a criminal complaint at the end of July, the Serbian man was arrested at a top-end hotel in the glitzy town of Cannes in the south of France, apparently living the high-life with a luxury car and a 100,000-euro watch.
   
After appearing in court, he was remanded in custody on charges of fraud and being part of a organised crime network, his lawyer Gerard Boudoux told AFP on Sunday.  Police are still looking for his alleged accomplice.
   
The South Korean said he had been approached by the men initially over a possible investment in his company. The discussions led instead to the transaction that would see the South Korean transfer the bitcoin to a foreign account in exchange for the cash.
   
Regulators worldwide are grappling with the boom in crypto-currencies like bitcoin, which are known to be used by criminals for transactions and money-laundering.

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FILM

Cannes Film Festival postponed to July due to Covid

The Cannes Film Festival has been rescheduled for July 6th to 17th - postponed by around two months due to the ongoing virus crisis, organisers said on Wednesday.

Published: 28 January 2021 08:06 CET
Cannes Film Festival postponed to July due to Covid
The 2018 Palme d'Or winner Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-Eda posing for the cameras at the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual highlight for movie lovers in France. Photo: AFP

“As announced last autumn, the Festival de Cannes reserved the right to change its dates depending on how the global health situation developed,” they said in a statement.

“Initially scheduled from 11th to 22nd May 2021, the Festival will therefore now take place from Tuesday 6th to Saturday 17th July 2021.”

The festival was cancelled last year, while rival European events in Berlin and Venice went ahead under strict health restrictions.

The Berlin Film Festival, which usually kicks off in February, said last month it would run this year's edition in two stages, an online offering for industry professionals in March and a public event in June.

France has closed all cinemas, theatres and show rooms alongside cafés, bars and restaurants as part of its Covid-19 health measures and the government has pushed back their reopening date until further notice due to rising levels of viral spread across the country.

The Cannes festival normally attracts some 45,000 people with official accreditations, of whom around 4,500 are journalists.

It had only been cancelled once before, due to the outbreak of war in 1939.

Its Film Market, held alongside the main competition, is the industry's biggest marketplace for producers, distributors, buyers and programmers.

Last year, the festival still made an official selection of 56 films – including the latest offerings from Wes Anderson, Francois Ozon and Steve McQueen – allowing them to use the “Cannes official selection” label.

 

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