Hervé Jaubert


Hervé Jaubert is a former French Navy officer, marine engineer, spy who operated as a secret agent for the DGSE until 1993. He moved to Stuart, Florida in the early 2000s where he set up a company to build and operate recreational submarines. He then moved his firm to the United Arab Emirates, branded as Exomos. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis in October 2008, Exomos ceased to exist. Jaubert was found guilty of embezzlement by a Dubai Court and has been sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to repay AED 14 million. Jaubert fled the country within the year after being accused of embezzlement and subsequently returned to Stuart, where he is a permanent US resident.

Events in the United Arab Emirates

Embezzlement and escape

In 2004 Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem visited Jaubert's factory in Florida and invited him to move his firm to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Jaubert accepted the invitation and bin Sulayem put him in charge of a new subsidiary of Dubai World. There Jaubert set up a submarine manufacturing company with a factory, which after two years started making tourist submarines and superfast boats: it made four mini-submarines, a submersible yacht, and a larger submarine called Nautilus which could carry nine people.
Juabert was put in charge of a newly formed subsidiary of Dubai World that Bin Sulayem chaired, which is the same company behind the development of Palm Jumeirah and World Islands. He lived with his American wife and two children in a villa with private swimming pool. According to Dubai courts, auditors investigating the company accounts found gaps and equipments that Mr Jaubert had ordered from his own company in Florida failed to arrive, or parts were faulty. He was alleged to have short-changed Dubai World by AED 14 million. According to Jaubert, the company wanted to pull the plug on the venture but wanted to blame someone first. Jaubert was questioned by auditors and the police. According to Jaubert, the police threatened Jaubert to "insert needles into your nose again and again". According to Jaubert, he promised to pay back the AED 14 million to buy time to escape. He was court ordered to stay in the country and hand his passport due to being under investigation. The court found Jaubert guilty of embezzlement and sentenced him to five years in prison and ordered him to repay AED 14 million.
According to Jaubert's account, he got to Fujairah, where a set of frogman's kit was smuggled to him in parts. One night in May 2008 he put this frogman's kit on, and an Arab woman's abaya over it as a disguise. He slipped from his hotel to the beach at night disguised under the abaya and swam to the area's only police patrol boat, which was in a coastguard station, and climbed onto the boat and clogged its fuel lines to prevent pursuit. Next morning he made his escape on a rubber dinghy with a small outboard motor, and sailed and waited in international waters for six hours to a prearranged meeting with a former fellow spy in a sailing boat, just outside United Arab Emirates territorial waters. The sailing boat carried him in eight days to Mumbai in India, and from there in 2008 he went home to Florida.
After Jaubert fled, Dubai World and Dubai police accused Jaubert of embezzlement and escape, and said that at least two of his submarines he was contracted to work on did not work.

Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum

On March 4, 2018, Hervé Jaubert and a Finnish woman, Tiina Jauhiainen, attempted to allegedly help Dubai Princess Latifa escape from Dubai. They were intercepted by Indian and Emirati special forces and were taken from a yacht off the coast of Goa, India. Two weeks later he was released, along with Jauhiainen and the three Filipino crew.
In December 2018, Helene Jaubert, the American ex-wife of former French Navy officer Hervé Jaubert told American news website The Daily Beast that Hervé Jaubert and Radha Stirling had been in contact with princess Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum for 5 years and invented the whole disappearance scheme together. According to Helene, “The whole plan was for Herve to help her escape and once he got her out the daughter was going to get to the dad and say I want $3 million or else I’ll tell all to the media”. According to Helene, "It was a con. It’s a corrupt scheme gone haywire". According to Stirling, Latifa phoned her from the boat in the middle of the ambush, saying she feared for her life and “was hearing gunshots.” According to Stirling, Latifa made the call via WhatsApp and evidence of the call was provided to authorities in the USA and UK and made available to reporters, although The Daily Beast pointed out that a satellite phone is normally needed to call from their alleged location in the Indian Ocean.

Trials

On 28 June 2009 a court in Dubai tried Jaubert in absentia and found him guilty and sentenced him to 5 years imprisonment. George Dalton, Dubai World's chief counsel, stated in an interview in September 2009 that he was confident that a US Court would return a similar verdict against Jaubert.
On 9 September 2009 Jaubert filed a lawsuit in Martin County Court in Florida against Dubai World, for defamation, fraud, abuse of process by the Dubai police, and false imprisonment.
On 28 February 2011 at Fort Pierce, Florida the court rejected all Dubai World's claims against Herve Jaubert of breach of contract, fraud, embezzlement and theft. The court also found against Jaubert's claim of abuse of process, and Jaubert was not awarded any money damages or other relief.

Books

Herve Jaubert published seven books: