Mamy Ravatomanga, a businessman with longstanding ties to former president Andry Rajoelina, has been placed at the centre of a corruption case that ranks among the most widely followed legal proceedings in Madagascar. A trial opening Tuesday in Antananarivo has placed the 57-year-old at the centre of proceedings, with prosecutors alleging that five Boeing 777 aircraft were funnelled toward Iran through short-term Malagasy registrations in an arrangement designed to sidestep multiple layers of US sanctions.
Registered under Mahan Air's operating certificates, those aircraft had no physical presence on Madagascan soil at any point. According to investigators in Madagascar, the aircraft's registration documents were what enabled them to pass through international airspace on their way to Iran during July 2025.
Detained in Mauritius, Ravatomanga faces allegations covering money laundering and influence peddling. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Court papers obtained by a news outlet contained statements attributed to co-defendant Singh Khushwinder — identified in the filing as the likely actual owner of the firm through which the aircraft were registered in Madagascar — in which he told investigators that Ravatomanga had received five million euros through the arrangement. At a bail hearing in Mauritius, the defence pointed to what it described as multiple conflicting accounts of the allegations, among them a discrepancy in which the sum appeared as five million dollars rather than euros.
Witness statements, digital records, and audio recordings gathered through a joint probe by the FBI and Mauritius's Financial Crimes Commission now underpin the corruption allegation, the anti-corruption body in Mauritius has indicated.
Acquired by Ion Aviation, a Florida-registered company, the aircraft — originally part of Singapore Airlines' fleet from the early 2000s — were subsequently placed in storage on Chinese soil. An aviation registry maintained by planespotters now shows all five aircraft carrying Mahan Air as their recorded operator. Sanctions imposed by the US Treasury in April placed two of them under formal restrictions, with the carrier — headquartered in Tehran — alleged to have facilitated the procurement and movement of unmanned aerial vehicles and weaponry.
Photo evidence entered into the case by prosecutors — images reportedly captured at a gathering held within Antananarivo's Novotel hotel — places Ravatomanga among those believed to have been present at the meeting. Investigators with Madagascar's anti-corruption body identified four individuals as having taken part: Valery Ramonjavelo, who held the transport minister portfolio at the time; Gervais Damasy, director of the national civil aviation authority; Khushwinder; and Hamid Arabnejad, a citizen of Iran.
Arabnejad, whom US authorities have listed as Mahan Air's chief executive since 2013, has been subject to American sanctions on the basis that he directed the airline's efforts to circumvent those restrictions and channelled support and services to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force.
Attorneys representing Ravatomanga maintain that the photographs described as evidence have not been presented to their client, and they have raised doubts about whether such images exist. When questions about the photographs were put to the FBI, the bureau offered no response.
According to two sources with knowledge of the matter, FBI agents travelling to Madagascar conducted interviews with a number of the accused. Among the 28 individuals facing prosecution are those who attended the Novotel gathering as well as former Senate president Richard Ravalomanana. No proceedings are anticipated against Ravatomanga, who had already travelled to the neighbouring island of Mauritius in the days prior to the military takeover that removed Rajoelina from power in October 2025.
Ravatomanga's Sodiat Group, which began as a transport operation in 1990, grew over time into a diversified business empire with holdings across automotive distribution, aviation, private security, media, construction, healthcare, real estate, hospitality, tourism, and the vanilla trade in Madagascar. Investigators in France had at one point scrutinised property holdings attributed to him in the area around Paris, pursuing suspicions of money laundering and rosewood trafficking, yet by 2023 the inquiry had been closed after authorities found the available evidence fell short of what was needed to proceed.
Ravatomanga faced questioning in Mauritius during the current year as part of a separate French judicial inquiry into allegations surrounding lychee exports from Madagascar to the European Union, according to information provided to a broadcaster by a source within the judiciary.
Lobine, acting as defence counsel for Ravatomanga, put forward the position that his client faced a response out of proportion to the alleged conduct, contending in remarks to a news channel that holding someone on remand for over a year ahead of trial — where the underlying allegations would, at most, constitute financial offences — had no clear precedent in Mauritius. On two separate occasions, judges in Mauritius have turned down applications for bail, with the most recent ruling — handed down on 12 October — grounded in assessments that the individual posed a flight risk. One investigator noted that there had been concern Ravatomanga would flee in the manner of Carlos Ghosn, the former Renault-Nissan chief who absconded while awaiting trial.
Ownership of the plane linked to Ghosn's flight out of Japan and into Turkey traced back through registration documents to TOA, a subsidiary operating under the Sodiat Group umbrella, while operational control of that specific trip rested with MNG Jet, a Turkish aviation company.
