![\"Swiss](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/rcv.YNA.20260309.PRU20260309340801009_P1.jpg\")
Swiss government officials pay tribute to the victims of a fire in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, Jan. 3. (Reuters-Yonhap) <\/p>\n Swiss government officials pay tribute to the victims of a fire in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, Jan. 3. (Reuters-Yonhap) <\/p>\n
GENEVA (AFP) — Swiss prosecutors on Monday said five more current and former local officials were under criminal investigation over the New Year bar fire in the ski resort of Crans-Montana that killed 41 people.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor’s office in southwestern Switzerland’s Wallis canton, where the upmarket ski resort is located, declined to provide further details.<\/p>\n
However, a source close to the case confirmed to Agence France-Presse that the mayor of the Crans-Montana municipality, Nicolas Feraud, is among those under investigation, as reported by Swiss media.<\/p>\n
The source said a former municipal councillor in charge of security, and current or former public safety officials, have also been placed under criminal investigation.<\/p>\n
The move widens the scope of the investigation into the inferno in the early hours of Jan. 1 at Le Constellation bar.<\/p>\n
Besides those killed — who were mostly teenagers — a further 115 people were injured and 58 remain in hospitals in Switzerland and other countries.<\/p>\n
The municipality triggered outrage on Jan. 6 when it revealed that no annual safety check had been carried out at the bar since 2019.<\/p>\n
Nine people are now under criminal investigation.<\/p>\n
They include the French bar owners, Jacques and Jessica Moretti, who face charges of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence.<\/p>\n
Crans-Montana’s current head of public safety and a former fire safety officer in the town were also already under criminal investigation.<\/p>\n
“We are clearly satisfied with the expansion of proceedings,” said Sebastien Fanti, a lawyer representing four victims’ families.<\/p>\n
He told AFP that “the question now arises whether Mr. Feraud can continue to lead this municipality.”<\/p>\n
Wallis prosecutors are investigating the circumstances of the fire, whether safety regulations were followed and who was responsible.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors believe the fire started when champagne bottles with sparklers attached were raised too close to the basement bar’s ceiling, igniting the sound insulation foam.<\/p>\n
The current and former municipal officials now under criminal investigation, as well as Jacques Moretti, are to be questioned by prosecutors between April 7 and 15, another source close to the case told AFP.<\/p>\n
The bar owners are meanwhile also under suspicion for money laundering, media reports revealed Monday.<\/p>\n
The Swiss federal police’s money laundering unit, MROS, sent a report last month to Wallis prosecutors raising concerns over the couple’s business dealings.<\/p>\n
The 15-page document was based on reports of suspicious activity submitted by banking intermediaries, Le Temps daily reported.<\/p>\n
The main concerns centred on numerous transfers of funds between various companies owned by the couple, with the sums involved in the hundreds of thousands of Swiss francs (dollars).<\/p>\n
“This method of operating, by transferring funds between the different business entities owned by the Moretti couple, appears to be a modus operandi reminiscent of transit accounts,” the document stated, cited by the RTS public broadcaster. Such accounts are typically used to obscure the traceability of funds.<\/p>\n
Other practices have led investigators to request that judicial authorities examine elements that could constitute offences such as mismanagement, forgery, insurance fraud, or serious tax evasion.<\/p>\n
The report mentions “the existence of a suspected criminal financial scheme, comparable to a Ponzi scheme,” media reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Swiss government officials pay tribute to the victims of a fire in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, Jan. 3. (Reuters-Yonhap) GENEVA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[17296,17410,15885,9328,1862,41,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-28740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-switzerland","8":"tag-municipality","9":"tag-probe","10":"tag-prosecutors","11":"tag-resort","12":"tag-ski","13":"tag-swiss","14":"tag-switzerland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116203141407134326","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}