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Vigik passes, which allow residents of a building and the postman to enter the halls, are sometimes hijacked by burglars. In October, a business manager from Puteaux who marketed these passes was indicted for organized fraud. Investigation.
They are supposed to secure access to buildings. However, electronic passes seem a little too easy to counterfeit, to the point of attracting burglars and finding themselves in the middle of traffic. In a chic district of Paris, two thieves were arrested a few weeks ago while leaving a building. They carried on them fraudulent passes, usually used by professionals such as postal workers, energy and telecom workers, the police or firefighters. These 170,000 passes have one thing in common: they deactivate after a few days if they are not recharged.
An electronics specialist found the fault, copied the cards and resold them clandestinely. The 49-year-old man, working in Puteaux (Hauts-de-Seine), was indicted. 200 blank passes and 130,000 euros in cash were found at his home. The lack of vigilance of some locksmiths is also blamed. One of them confirmed to France Télévisions the existence of a clandestine network of passes. The territorial security of Paris has already dismantled two networks since 2019. “They were essentially habitual burglars, (…) and who need to facilitate their action to have a means of gaining discreet access to the building, so as not to attract attention”explains Commissioner Julien Herbaut, head of territorial security in Paris.