Philippine authorities are seeking a French fugitive who is alleged to have embezzled millions of dollars from oil giant Elf, and is thought to be hiding in Manila, Philippine immigration chief said Monday.
Alfred Sirven, the former number two at Elf Aquitaine has been on the run from French justice since 1997 for alleged embezzlement and operation of a slush fund to buy influence in several illicit deals.
Philippine police are searching for him after it was discovered that he had assumed a dead man's identity.
"We hope we can make a breakthrough and get him as we know now what passport he has been using," Bureau of Immigration commissioner Rufus Rodriguez told AFP.
Rodriguez said he believed Sirven was on the run but still hiding in greater Manila.
Sirven, 73, is believed to have entered the Philippines in December 1997 using an assumed name, investigators said.
He is believed to be hiding here with his Filipina girlfriend, Vilma Aguilando Medina. Both are believed to own several properties in and around Manila.
The immigration chief on Monday showed AFP a copy of the passport used by Sirven with his picture on it but bearing the name of Robert Lapierre, a Frenchman who reportedly died of cancer four months after the document was issued.
Reports have said Lapierre's son admitted selling his father's passport to a friend in Geneva, who is thought to have then given it to Sirven. He was questioned in Geneva on Saturday.
"As Robert Lapierre, he has been able to extend his visa here as late as February of this year," Rodriguez said.
The stamp mark on the passport showed the holder of the passport arrived in the Philippines on September 4, 1998 and obtained a tourist visa to Thailand, he said.
"We are really hot on his trail, We will get him, certainly we will get him. It's just a matter of time," Rodriguez said.
He said the authorities were banking on clues from local informants, who have helped Philippine police track down high-level foreign fugitives in the past, he said.
Four French police officers have been in the Philippines since October 24, working with the Philippine Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force, the National Bureau of Investigation and the Immigration Bureau on Sirven's case.
Pierre Goujard, the head of the French police team here, told AFP: "We have received excellent cooperation from all agencies working on Sirven's case. The exchange of information has been good," he said.
Intense media publicity about Sirven's case has made it difficult for police to apprehend the Frenchman, who once boasted he knew enough to "bring down the French republic 20 times over."
Four international warrants are out for Sirven's arrest.
In February, he was committed in absentia to stand trial alongside former French foreign minister Roland Dumas in one of several cases arising from the affair -- MANILA (AFP)
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