The voice on the phone from Switzerland is filled with hesitation and nerves. It’s been just a week since a devastating fire swept through the basement of the Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana, claiming the lives of 40 people and leaving 116 others, mostly teenagers celebrating the New Year, seriously injured.

In recent days, the overwhelming grief of the victims’ parents has turned into anger aimed at the French owners of the ski resort bar, Jacques and Jessica Moretti.

Yesterday, Swiss prosecutors deemed 49-year-old Jacques a “flight risk,” leading to his dramatic arrest. Reports indicate that he has a criminal background with multiple offenses.

Alarming reports have emerged that Jacques’ 40-year-old wife, Jessica, was caught on CCTV fleeing Le Constellation as the fire raged, allegedly clutching the cash register, while hundreds of young patrons remained trapped inside.

Jessica, a former model and actress, has an intriguing past, having worked with British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, as revealed by the Daily Mail.

More details will follow about the tragic events that unfolded on New Year’s Eve, including serious safety concerns previously flagged by former staff members. These concerns, especially regarding the bar’s young clientele, some as young as 14, were voiced by a French bartender who is now in a coma due to the horrific incident.

With pressure growing on the couple, Jacques Moretti’s father exclusively told the Daily Mail over the phone this week that his son and daughter–in–law – whose own father is a retired firefighter – have been left devastated by the tragedy. ‘We are a family. We are united. We’ll see what happens next,’ he said.

The couple face possible charges of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence. They were formally interviewed by Swiss prosecutors yesterday.

They have always maintained there was no wrongdoing on their part. Jessica Moretti was in tears after the interview and, speaking for the first time about the disaster, said: ‘It’s an unimaginable tragedy. We never could have imagined this. I want to apologise. My thoughts are constantly with the victims, and with the people who continue to fight [for their lives].’ She now has to wear an electronic tag, and report to police every three days.

Meanwhile, questions are being asked about how the couple have, over a decade, built an empire in one of the most exclusive resorts in the Swiss Alps, given Jacques Moretti’s criminal past – not to mention how they managed to evade inspections for six years.

Both born on the stunning French island of Corsica, sources there told the Daily Mail that the reason they moved to Switzerland ten years ago was because Jacques Moretti was no longer allowed to run businesses in France.

According to one who is familiar with Mr Moretti’s past: ‘They don’t ask too many questions in Switzerland. He was often in serious trouble in France, so Switzerland was an obvious place to set up.’

His murky CV includes two years in prison in France for fraud in 2005 and another spell inside three years later for recruiting prostitutes for an erotic massage parlour in Geneva called The Hot Rabbit, where he worked as manager.

Mr Moretti was convicted in 2008 by a court in Annecy in France for what is known as ‘proxénétisme aggravé’ – aggravated pimping – after procuring young women in France to work in the Swiss city in 2004 and 2005. According to the court, as well as accommodating all the women in a flat he rented, he also set their rates and the number of clients they worked for.

Moretti, who was still living in Corsica at the time, was caught after his phone was tapped and found guilty by magistrates of having ‘profited from prostitution’ and acting as an ‘intermediary’ with other people ‘exploiting or remunerating the prostitution of others’. He also recruited women to work in other Swiss massage parlours.

He was sentenced to 12 months in prison, with eight suspended.

His most recent conviction was in 2010 back in Corsica, where he received a two–year sentence for social security fraud, relating to housing assistance.

Moretti was born in 1977 into a long–standing Corsican family on an island which is notorious for gang–related clan violence.

Raised in the village of Ghisonaccia, he started work in the bar and restaurant industry soon after leaving school and moved to Bonifacio, a glamorous port city on the southern tip of the island, where the rich and famous like to anchor their superyachts.

In 2009, he set up a nightclub bar called Lollapalooza. It was closed in 2014, shortly before his move to Switzerland. By then he was in a relationship with Jessica Maric.

She was born in Corsica in 1985 but, aged six, moved with her family to the French Riviera where she later took a business course at the International University of Monaco at the end of the 2000s.

According to her now shut Facebook page she also briefly studied at the University of Glamorgan in South Wales, as well as at Montpellier Business School in France.

A hideous irony, given the events of last week, is that Jessica’s father, Jean–Paul Maric, is a former senior fire chief in Cannes and president of the city’s charitable firefighters ‘friendly society’.

His brother – Jean–Pierre Maric – is also a former firefighter and president of a rural ‘Forest Fire’ committee, which as well as recruiting volunteer firefighters, visits schools teaching youngsters about the dangers of fire.

According to a family friend: ‘Her father and other relatives are highly respected firefighters in the south of France. Protecting people from fire is part of family tradition.’

Before entering the hospitality business with her husband, Jessica worked for years as a fashion, underwear and swimwear model, while also acting in a series of short promotional videos in the early 2000s. In 2012, she was among a group of models hired to appear alongside comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen for a publicity stunt to promote his film, The Dictator, at the Cannes Film Festival.

Strikingly dressed in a red beret, khaki jacket and miniskirt and clutching a stunt Kalashnikov rifle, she was one of the so–called ‘virgin guards’ who accompanied Baron Cohen’s character Haffaz Aladeen through the streets of Cannes, posing at the entrance to the Carlton hotel and next to a camel.

She and husband Jacques moved to Crans–Montana in 2015, where Jessica cut a glamorous figure in an Alpine resort which is hugely popular with wealthy Europeans.

He, meanwhile, was often seen driving around the town in a limousine, and more recently a Bentley, and went by the nickname ‘Le Corse’ – the Corsican – a title he is said to revel in. That same year the pair took over as managers of Le Constellation, which had opened in the early 2000s, but only as a basic cafe–bar.

They set about renovating it themselves, posting photographs of their work on a dedicated Facebook page which has since been shut down. In one image Jacques Moretti can be seen smiling at the camera from inside the two–storey bar, the interior of which was demolished by a digger before being rebuilt and lined with wood to give the feel of an alpine cabin.

Other images show the narrow staircase up which hundreds of youngsters desperately attempted to escape on January 1.

The ceiling of the basement was stripped back before the addition of dimpled acoustic insulation foam to avoid disturbing residents living in apartments above the bar. That foam is now widely believed to have been fatally ignited by sparklers in champagne bottles on the night of the fire.

A Swiss investigating source with knowledge of local government administration in Crans–Montana told the Daily Mail this week: ‘With the change of management, the bar was gradually used as a nightclub, despite not having a specific permit to operate as one. This fact is now key to the manslaughter inquiry against the Morettis.’

The bar, known as ‘Le Constel’ to its loyal clientele, soon became popular among teenage skiers and students from nearby Le Regent International School. Five years later, in 2020, the Morettis opened a second venue, Le Senso, a burger bar in the resort.

In 2023, they launched an upmarket Corsican–themed restaurant, Le Vieux Chalet in Lens, a Swiss village that is also part of the Crans–Montana region. The couple own a house in Lens and another property on the French Riviera.

While the pair have insisted that they operated within the law, lawyers for families of the victims are now asking a growing number of questions about where, exactly, the Morettis got all their cash. According to one lawyer, they spent around £2.7 million on property in recent years.

According to financial records accessed by Swiss lawyer Sebastien Fanti, who is representing some of the victims, they paid 40,000 Swiss francs (around £37,000) a month in rent for seven years before buying Le Constellation in 2022 without a mortgage. They then bought Le Senso in 2023 and finally Le Vieux Chalet.

Mr Fanti described Mr Moretti this week as ‘a shady character whose practices raise questions’.

‘I don’t have a single foreign client who moves to Switzerland without taking out a mortgage, and I’ve been a notary for 26 years. We don’t know where Mr Moretti’s money comes from,’ he said.

He added: ‘Do you know how many coffees and bottles of champagne you have to sell to pay 40,000 francs a month in rent?’

The key question is who, ultimately, is to blame for the inferno. In its immediate aftermath, Jacques Moretti claimed he ‘followed all safety regulations’. It has since transpired, however, that no fire inspections had been carried out at Le Constellation for the past six years, despite the fact it counted as a ‘high–risk’ location.

‘We bitterly regret this,’ Crans–Montana mayor Nicolas Feraud said this week, adding he couldn’t explain why the inspections, which should have been yearly, had not been carried out. During previous inspections, including the last in 2019, the soundproof foam was never tested. According to Mr Feraud, it wasn’t considered necessary.

He added that he and his team were unaware the bar was using the kind of fountain sparklers said to have caused the fire. But others were and had raised concerns – among them a former waitress, called Sarah, who said this week she quit due to safety concerns.

A video filmed in Le Constellation on New Year’s Eve in 2019 showed revellers carrying bottles of vodka loaded with ice fountain sparklers with a waiter calling out to one holding a bottle dangerously close to the ceiling: ‘Watch out for the foam! Watch out for the foam!’

Sarah said: ‘I worked a few months as a waitress before leaving for several reasons. I refused to do a lot of things. This practice, encouraging customers to buy champagne bottles, seemed extremely dangerous to me. I categorically refused to sit on shoulders for the show because I was afraid my hair would burn. It’s dangerous because of the balance, the stairs, there’s the crowd, and then people are very drunk.’

She said the emergency exit was kept locked with staff ‘ordered’ not to unlock it except to go upstairs to an apartment above the bar. She said she only saw fire extinguishers in an office that was ‘often locked’.

Another former bar employee called Maxime told French TV that extinguishers were kept in a locked room at the bar: ‘I always said that if waitresses held up sparklers and they came into contact with the ceiling, everything could go up in flames.

‘There was definitely a risk and the safety measures were a bit dicey. Staff weren’t briefed on fire safety and the emergency exit was sometimes blocked or locked.’

According to a French broadcaster, French bar manager Gaetan Thomas–Gilbert, 28, who was severely burnt in the fire, had previously told his father of his concerns about safety at the venue.

Jean–Michel Gilbert said his son told him in November that he wanted to quit his job but ultimately decided to stick it out until the New Year. He is being treated in a Paris hospital for third–degree burns and only came out of a coma this week.

What seems clear is that given the bar’s habit of promoting the use of fountain sparklers, the fire was an accident waiting to happen.

Mr Moretti was not at Le Constellation on December 31. His wife, who was in charge, sustained a burn to one arm as the blaze tore through the bar at around 1.30am on January 1 causing a mass stampede which left dozens crushed and dying.

Media outlets in France and Italy this week reported Mrs Moretti was captured on security cameras fleeing with the cash register. Italy’s La Repubblica said she had fled with the ‘cash register containing the evening’s takings’. French news site Public said: ‘CCTV footage reportedly shows the bar owner leaving the premises with the cash register shortly after the start of the incident.’

If this allegation is true, Mrs Moretti could face further criminal charges including ‘failing to assist people in danger’.

Meanwhile, another former employee told French media that Jacques Moretti ordered staff to turn the beer taps off and fill glasses with cans from Aldi, and that empty bottles of Grey Goose vodka were refilled with a cheaper version. Staff were also paid partly ‘under the table’ in cash to compensate for working more hours than they should.

The Morettis face up to 20 years in prison if charged and found guilty of manslaughter. But as Jacques Moretti’s father said yesterday, the couple ‘are sentenced to life with this story’.

‘It’s the first time in my life that I’ve seen Jacques cry,’ he told Le Figaro. ‘I know my son, he would never run away. It is his honour. We think of the victims, we also lost loved ones and people we loved. We cry every day.’

On Tuesday the Morettis pledged their ‘full co–operation’ with investigators. ‘We will under no circumstances attempt to evade these matters,’ they said.

Meanwhile, a growing mountain of floral tributes sits outside Le Constellation, many accompanied by messages written by those affected by the tragedy.

Among them are grieving parents and those whose injured children have been left burnt, in some cases, beyond recognition. An explanation about what happened that night is surely the very least they deserve. 

Additional reporting by Emma Carmichael.