French police raid Paris Ritz in Al-Fayed trafficking investigation

French police raided three properties linked to Mohamed Al Fayed — including the Paris Ritz, which the late billionaire owned — in an investigation into human trafficking, aggravated pimping by an organised gang and rape. Several people were taken into custody during the mid-October searches, and digital equipment was seized. British investigators were present at the searches, which also covered the Villa Sainte-Thérèse in Saint-Tropez and the Villa Windsor in Paris's 16th arrondissement.

The Paris prosecutor's organised crime division is running the investigation following complaints of sexual abuse allegedly committed by Fayed, who died in 2023 aged 94. Several alleged victims have been interviewed by French officers. The Metropolitan Police said in an email to survivors that its officers were present during the searches on October 13 and 14 as part of a coordinated operation with French investigators.

The raids move the reckoning from Harrods' fourth floor to the continental machinery — hotels, villas, fixers — that survivors say kept the operation running for decades. The survivor group No One Above said the French authorities had put the case in the hands of their specialist trafficking unit and were investigating it as trafficking by an organised gang. 'The evidence in this case was never confined to Harrods,' a spokesperson said. 'For two years, the Met has avoided treating it as what France recognised from the outset: organised trafficking by a network. The National Crime Agency should now take over the investigation.'

The Met describes its investigation into those who may have facilitated Fayed's offending as one of the largest and most complex it is currently undertaking. Seven people have been questioned under caution — four women in their 40s to 80s and three men in their 60s to 80s — on suspicion of offences including aiding and abetting rape, assisting sexual offences and trafficking for sexual exploitation. Detectives have submitted a full evidential file to the Crown Prosecution Service on a further suspect alleged to have committed two indecent assaults in London. To date, 169 victims have come forward to the Met; survivors' groups say more than 500 women have reported abuse overall.

Jen Mills and Lindsay Mason, co-chairs of Justice for Fayed and Harrods Survivors and both former personal assistants to Fayed, said young women were moved between his properties in Britain and overseas for decades. 'We have never believed this was about one man acting alone,' they said. 'Fayed is dead, but many of those who helped him are not, and his death must never become their protection.' They called for the same searches to be carried out at British properties.

The Ritz raid was carried out in mid-October; the Met has yet to search a single one of his British properties.