The club had a secret fund that was used for bribing officials and opponents.

For hundreds of years they had given secret funds to buying foreigners' services to safeguard their own security.

In 1993, a sum of $70m was allocated from the prime minister's secret funds.

When he threatened to publish his memoirs, a secret fund was set up to buy him off.

"If the loan has been for secret political funds, how could I have done such conspicuous things?"

In 1992, as the investigations into his financial management of the secret fund began, there were two failed military coups against him.

But France's system of secret funds may not exist for much longer.

The PM has to go before a committee and beg for more secret funds.

Clearly sanctions are being broken and the country still has secret funds abroad.

The changed name, the offer of a new life in Canada, the thousand pounds a year she would be given from the secret funds?