Lotfi Nezzar Wanted by American Justice

Our investigative team recently uncovered a key court document, censored and not covered by Algerian media, revealing that a U.S. federal court has issued a ruling ordering SmartLink Communication (SLC), SPA, an Algerian telecommunications company founded by Lotfi Nezzar, to pay $26.9 million to the U.S.-based Wizara, LLC for an unpaid contract dating back to 2003.The verdict published on March 06, 2024 by the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York sentencing Lotfi Nezzar’s company SmartLink Communication (SLC) and his associate Karim Cherfaoui, to pay the sum of $26.9 million to the American company Wizara, LLC.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of New York, sitting in Syracuse, has handed down a verdict on March 2023 (with the opinion filed in March 2024) against SLC, SPA an Algerian telecommunications company founded by Lotfi Nezzar, son of former Algerian Defense Minister Khaled Nezzar, himself accused by the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s Office of crimes against humanity and prosecuted by the Swiss Federal Criminal Court, and managed by Karim Cherfaoui, son of a former military cipher and close associate of Mohamed Mediene. SmartLink was ordered to pay $26.9 million to the American companies Wizara, LLC and CHASS, LLC, for an unpaid debt dating back to 2003.

The dispute, registered as 5:17-CV-424 (LEK/TWD) and available in full PDF on the U.S. government website here, is based on breach of contract under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 of the U.S. Constitution, which allows U.S. federal courts to adjudicate international commercial disputes exceeding $75,000.

A Phantom Contract and a Colossal Debt
In 2003, CHASS and Wizara signed a contract with SmartLink to supply telecommunications equipment and services in Algeria, including VoIP and wireless broadband. But while the services were provided, the payments did not follow. SmartLink reportedly accumulated a debt of $8.67 million, which the company never settled.

Faced with repeated demands for payment, SmartLink officially acknowledged its debt twice, in 2009 and 2013, in letters addressed to the plaintiffs. In these letters, the Algerian company undertook to pay the sum due by 2015-a promise that was never kept. With a contractual interest rate of 12% per annum, the amount owed exploded over the years, reaching $26.9 million. Despite this, SmartLink paid only $437,094, barely 5% of the original total.

Flight from American Justice
The case has been dragging on in the courts since 2017, but a decisive turning point came in 2022, when SmartLink’s lawyers suddenly abandoned the company’s defense. In their request to withdraw, they cited difficulties in communicating with their client and the company’s lack of cooperation. Lotfi Nezzar had simply stopped paying and responding to his lawyers. The court then gave SmartLink 60 days to find a new lawyer, pointing out that a company cannot represent itself alone in US federal court. SmartLink ignored the injunction and simply disappeared from the trial. In June 2023, faced with a complete lack of defense, the court struck SmartLink’s answer and granted a default judgment in favor of Wizara and CHASS.

SLC Une Affaire D’Etat Mise Sous Le Tapis en Algérie
In 2017, the Agence de Régulation des Postes et Télécommunications (ARPT), headed by Houda Feraoun and her Secretary General Fouad Belkessam, alerted Abdelmalek Sellal to a major problem concerning the operator Smart Link Communications (SLC), owned by the Nezzar family. According to the ARPT’s correspondence, since 2006, SLC has been “misusing” the five 5GHz band channels assigned to it. Initially intended for the operation of an RLAN network with sensitive equipment, these channels were used for other purposes to deploy a backbone network, a function normally reserved for a licensed operator.

In other words, through this hijacking of 5GHz channels, Lotfi Nezzar (with the technical assistance of Karim Cherfaoui) had set up an opaque and sophisticated eavesdropping and data-capture network that bypassed the official authorities. Operating behind the scenes, this system not only provided access to Internet flows and traffic, but also gathered intelligence on the communications of strategic clients in Algeria, such as embassies, customs and Sonatrach. This clandestine network, concealed behind a legal façade, facilitated unauthorized surveillance and the use of backdoors, making it possible to extract sensitive information without the knowledge of the relevant authorities.Karim Cherfaoui, partner and technical brains behind Lotfi Nezzar, manager of Smart Link Communications (SLC), son of a former military cipher and close associate of Mohamed Mediene. SLC has created an opaque backdoor enabling the clandestine interception of data flows and the capture of sensitive data, bypassing the official authorities.

In addition to these technical irregularities, the company was also involved in a dispute with the French Post and Electronic Communications Regulatory Authority (ARPCE). The latter claimed nearly 70 million dinars (around 520,000 euros) in unpaid taxes, while SLC argued that the law exempted it from these taxes. In early February 2019, the Ministry of Finance ruled in SLC’s favor, but in March 2019 (during the Hirak), the company finally sent a check for 38 million dinars. Three weeks later, ARPCE announced that it would not be renewing the authorizations granted to SLC for its Internet service activities.

On July 03, 2019, the company’s accounts are frozen, depriving SLC’s 300 employees of their last salaries and triggering mass redundancies. In mid-July 2019, the main Internet supply link, which SLC had been reselling to its customers, was cut. It was then that it was discovered that SLC’s customers included the majority of foreign embassies in Algiers, the majority of Algerian public institutions, including those with sensitive communications such as customs and various ministries, as well as major companies such as Sonatrach.

At the end of July 2019, SLC issued a statement denouncing what it called an “eminently political” measure. On July 31, 2019, ARPCE issued a press release denying any political involvement, citing only unpaid taxes, and calling on SLC customers to come forward to “ensure the continuity of their business” and “benefit from a service that meets their needs”.

In August 2019, against the backdrop of an unprecedented purge led by Ahmed Gaïd Salah, the situation took a decidedly political turn. While Khaled Nezzar and his son Lotfi were on the run in Spain, Khaled published a video calling for insurrection and the assassination of Ahmed Gaïd Salah. On Tuesday August 6, 2019, an international arrest warrant was issued for Lotfi Nezzar and his father, who were charged by Algerian military justice with conspiracy and undermining public order.

Case Brushing Under The Carpet
On December 23, 2019, Ahmed Gaïd Salah died suddenly of cardiac arrest, and, in circumstances that were surprising to say the least, Khaled Nezzar and his son returned aboard a presidential aircraft chartered by Saïd Chengriha, rehabilitated and cleared of all charges. A few months later, Guermit Bounouira revealed that Ahmed Gaïd Salah’s death was unnatural, but that he had been murdered by poisoning by Mohamed Mediene and Saïd Chengriha. This information was later corroborated by Toufik Bennacer, son of the former head of military justice at the Ministry of National Defense (Larbi Bennacer, himself murdered by Mohamed Mediene). Currently on the run in Europe and under international arrest warrant, Toufik Bennacer denounces corruption within the military system, particularly that of Saïd Chengriha.

Houda Feraoun, the former minister of telecom who was had authority on Lotfi Nezzar’s business, was sentenced and incarcerated at the Koléa prison in 2021, while her secretary-general Fouad Belkessam, whom our sources refer to as the real “black box” of the affair, holder of compromising financial and technical information relating to Lotfi Nezzar’s SLC, died under suspicious circumstances at the Aïn Naâdja hospital in the summer of 2021, in a context marked by several suspicious deaths during Mohamed Mediene’s return to power and the purge of certain generals in 2021. With the dismissal or disappearance of several of Lotfi Nezzar’s detractors, the latter’s debts and unpaid bills in Algeria now seem irretrievable.

In Algeria, impunity and institutional obstruction have long enabled Lotfi Nezzar to manipulate the system to his advantage, corrupting, neutralizing and even imprisoning his opponents in order to conceal his financial and technical shortcomings. In the United States, however, the situation is quite different. There, legal mechanisms, reinforced by active international cooperation, offer Wizara, LLC the possibility of personally prosecuting Lotfi Nezzar and his associates Karim Cherfaoui, and seizing their assets abroad. Under the impetus of Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, the idea of a fugitive, son of a war criminal incriminated by the Swiss Confederation, absconding with US$27 million, will not go down well. American authorities have the means to enforce justice on the international stage.

Facing The U.S. Justice, Escape Is No Longer Possible For Lotfi Nezzar And Karim Cherfaoui
The ruling issued by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York puts an end to years of litigation over non-payment for bandwidth and VoIP services provided by Wizara, LLC, and orders SLC, SPA, headed by Lotfi Nezzar, and Karim Cherfaoui, to pay $26.9 million for an unpaid contract dating back to 2003.

Algeria Will Obstruct But Spain and Switzerland May Freeze Nezzar’s Assets
The Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters (MLAT) between Algeria and the United States, ratified in Algiers on April 7, 2010, under Tayeb Belaiz and Eric H. Holder Jr., provides a legal framework for judicial cooperation in criminal investigations, asset seizures, and extraditions. However, its practical application in Lotfi Nezzar’s and Karim Cherfaoui’s case is unlikely to succeed. Algeria systematically refuses to recognize and enforce foreign judgments, and its restrictive judicial agreements, internal conditions, and a culture of obstruction among certain military officials mean that Lotfi Nezzar and Karim Cherfaoui will probably never be handed over to American jurisdiction. Article 3 of the treaty explicitly allows Algeria to refuse cooperation if compliance would threaten its sovereignty, security, or essential interests, a clause that could be invoked given the military establishment’s protection of the Nezzar and Cherfaoui family.

That said, the treaty does enable the identification, localization, and freezing of assets (Article 18 of the treaty). If U.S. authorities can link Nezzar’s laundered money or criminal proceeds to financial institutions within U.S. jurisdiction or those of allied countries, enforcement through secondary jurisdictions may be possible. Wizara, LLC can further leverage the treaty to locate and identify assets (Article 14) and secure judicial assistance in financial investigations (Article 2g). With much of Nezzar’s €300 million fortune located in Spain and Switzerland, Wizara could pursue measures such as a U.S. asset freeze under money laundering statutes (via the FCPA or RICO) or seek Swiss cooperation to freeze and confiscate illicit funds.

The entrance to the building housing Lotfi Nezzar’s 94.74 m² luxury apartment at 307 rue Muntaner in Barcelona is eligible for seizure by the American courts.

Given this context, Wizara, LLC intends to pursue Lotfi Nezzar and Karim Cherfaoui personally to recover a debt of nearly $27 million, an amount that, according to informal exchange rates (1 USD = 245 DA), equates to approximately 661.5 billion centimes, or 364.5 billion centimes at the official rate (1 USD = 135 DA). Their legal strategy will focus on seizing assets outside Algeria, notably in the United States, Great Britain, Spain, and Switzerland. In Spain, Lotfi Nezzar’s total fortune is estimated at $300 million and includes a luxury apartment of 94.74 m² at 307 Muntaner Street in Barcelona, a 6,031 m² plot of land in Ametlla de Mar (Tarragona province), and bank accounts with major institutions such as Santander, BBVA, UPS, International Bank, and HSBC Spain, totaling nearly €300 million. In Switzerland, the “Swiss Secrets” revelations showed that as early as February 2004, a Credit Suisse account opened by Khaled Nezzar held an initial balance of 2.1 million Swiss francs (approximately $1.7 million at the time), within a context where over 100 billion Swiss francs (about $108.5 billion) are held by 30,000 Credit Suisse clients involved in corruption, tax evasion, theft, or drug trafficking scandals.

Ultimately, faced with this extensive portfolio of international assets, Wizara, LLC’s legal strategy will be to go after Nezzar’s and Cherfaoui’s assets located outside Algeria to recover, in whole or in part, this staggering debt. The Donald Trump administration will hear about this 27 million debt held by an Algerian fugitive, and the U.S. Embassy in Algiers, the U.S. consulate in Barcelona, headed by Consul Lia Miller and Economic and Political Attaché José Ramírez-Rivera, along with their counterparts at the U.S. Embassies in Berne are expected to support these legal efforts in Spain and Switzerland.

Abderrahmane Fares