As part of the dismantling of a network that committed short-time work scams, a police operation carried out at the start of the week made it possible to arrest 12 people, aged 26 to 69, mainly in the Nantes region, said Friday, December 17th. Rennes prosecutor’s office.
Five people were indicted for scams and attempted scams in an organized gang, money laundering of organized gang fraud, criminal conspiracy and violation of the prohibition to manage. Seven people were released without prosecution.
This investigation was completed after several reports from the Direccte (Regional Directorate for Enterprises, Competition, Consumption, Labor and Employment) implicating four companies for fraudulently obtaining the total sum of 516,417 euros of short-time work scams proposed by the State in the context of the health crisis linked to Covid-19.
The specialized interregional court of Rennes was seized during the year 2020 by the Nantes prosecutor’s office and the Nantes research section was responsible for the preliminary investigation. Judicial information was opened to an investigating judge on April 2.
The investigations made it possible to discover “a structured organization making it possible to commit short-time work scams, involving many companies (domiciled in Rennes, Laval, Paris and the Paris region, Nantes, Vannes, etc.) managed by” straw managers “ or by having usurped identities.
The gendarmes were able to identify an individual already convicted on several occasions for acts of fraud. The latter, de facto manager of the various structures, had recourse to a forger to draft the articles of association of the companies, the banking documents and all the documents necessary for the setting up of the companies. He also recruited paid nominees “in view of the large number of companies”.
The investigations also brought to light a particularly opaque system which made it possible to release for two other companies an amount of more than 2.7 million euros through insurance and assistance activities that were not had no legality.
The total amount of scams committed by this network amounts to more than 3,290,000 euros. The money laundering circuits then sent the money to accounts abroad. More than 300,000 euros were seized. The indicted face sentences of 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of 750,000 euros or half the value of the money laundered.