PARIS (AP) — A Paris court has fined a Latvian bank for laundering hundreds of millions of euros through a vast scheme allowing French citizens to evade taxes.

The court fined Rietumu Banka 80 million euros ($91 million) Thursday for facilitating a scam to "democratize" tax evasion among ordinary taxpayers and small businesses in France.

Investigators suspect Rietumu of helping to launder up to 850 million euros ($964 million) from 2007 to 2012 with the complicity of a French financier, Nadav Bensoussan, and his company, France Offshore.

Bensoussan, who once promised "tax haven for all," was sentenced to serve two years in prison and to pay a 3-million-euro ($3.4 million) fine.

The court said the defendants organized "large-scale" tax evasion through offshore companies located in tax havens.