Ex-head of security at Geneva Airport convicted of corruption

Between 2012 and 2019, the former head of security had more than CHF450,000 ($507,000) paid out to various accounts after agreeing to a "corruption pact". Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi

The Criminal Court in Geneva sentenced the former head of security at Geneva airport to three years in prison for passive bribery, six months of which were unconditional on Friday. The man had favoured a company in exchange for money so that it received orders from the airport.

The former executive, who admitted to the offences, appeared in court under a simplified procedure. He was found guilty of passive bribery, unfaithful business management, breach of official secrecy, incitement to forgery of documents and aiding and abetting unemployment insurance fraud.

+Air traffic picks up at Swiss airports

In 2012, the ex-head of security had entered into “a corruption pact” with the head of a company in order to award the company several service contracts from Geneva Airport. The ex-head of security was supposed to influence the procedure for awarding the contracts so that the airport would select the company in question. Among other things, the company received contracts for training in the area of airport security.

More than CHF450,000

In return, the head of the company paid him “an undue advantage” equivalent to half of the company’s profits. Between 2012 and 2019, the former head of security had more than CHF450,000 ($507,000) paid out to various accounts in this way.

+Ranking: Swiss public sector shows corruption and lobbying vulnerability

The man, who was dismissed in 2019 after the accusations came to light, stood trial alongside the head of the company. This man, who had also admitted to the acts, was found guilty of active bribery, forgery of documents and aiding and abetting unemployment insurance fraud. He was sentenced to a conditional prison term of two years.

The two men must also pay Geneva Airport more than CHF450,000 to make good the damage and CHF70,000 for the costs of the proceedings.

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate them into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here. 

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].