Two people, including the head of security at Geneva airport, have been arrested in a corruption case involving the awarding of publicly-funded contracts.

Police carried out several raids on Wednesday, including at the airport, as part of an investigation into the awarding of two contracts to a Geneva-based security firm in February 2018.

Confirming the information reported by the 20 Minutes and Tribune de Genève newspapers, the Geneva public prosecutor said that two individuals – the head of security at Geneva airport and the director of the (unnamed) Geneva security company – were being investigated on suspicion of corruption and the misappropriation of public interests.

The principle of the presumption of innocence applies in both cases, the public prosecutor said.

In December 2018, another Geneva-based newspaper, Le Courrier, published an article about the Securitas firm and one of its daughter businesses, who won two contracts at the airport despite costing more than other tenders. The value of the contracts – both of which involved crowd organization at the airport – was some CHF80 million ($79.3 million), the newspaper wrote.

Le Courrier also published a profile of the head of security at the airport, an ex-employee of the Securitas firm.

For its part, Geneva airport authorities said on Wednesday that they were cooperating fully with the investigation and that they didn’t wish to make any other comment.

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