French justice is interested in an international network of money laundering so-called “false president” scams. Thanks to this increasingly fashionable system, the scammers managed to steal a record sum. Eight people were arrested.
It is certainly a record. Crooks have managed to extract 38.3 million euros from two French companies, thanks to the so-called “false president” scam. 38 million euros were thus stolen from a property developer located in the 14th arrondissement of Paris and 300,000 euros from a metallurgy company in Haute-Marne. The case, of international scope, has resulted in eight arrests in France and Israel in recent months. The investigation mobilizes gendarmes and police officers from several European countries to dismantle the criminal network. In this case, eight people were arrested between June 2022 and January 2023, left free pending possible prosecution. Two of them are the subject of a European search warrant issued by Portugal.
Identity theft via email
It all starts in December 2021. The manager of the Haute-Marne metallurgy company files a complaint. Crooks managed to steal 300,000 euros from him. The same day, December 29, it was a Parisian property developer who filed a complaint in turn, the crooks this time pulled off a much bigger blow: 38 million euros from the company went up in smoke. The investigation is first entrusted to the gendarmes of the research section of Reims, seized by the prosecutor of Chaumont (Haute-Marne). The same day, the payment fraud brigade (BFMP) of the Parisian PJ is seized by the Paris prosecutor’s office. The two investigations are then combined in January 2022 to be carried out under the aegis of the National Jurisdiction in charge of the fight against financial organized crime (Junalco). In June 2022, the European criminal police agency, Europol, is involved in the file. Because the stolen money ended up in accounts in different European countries.
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The principle is simple and formidable. “A scammer usurps the identity of the company’s manager by email”explains to franceinfo Jean-Paul Douvier, the commander of the research section of Reims. “He uses the pretext of a confidential financial transaction to convince the accountant to transfer funds to a bank account domiciled in Europe.” And to show his credentials, the fake CEO asks, always by email and with the utmost discretion, to the accountant to contact a fake auditor. The accountant, put in confidence, then carries out the transfers. “A few days later, a second payment of 500,000 euros must be made. This time, the accountant exchanges with work colleagues and that’s how the scam is discovered”explains the head of the research section of Reims.
At the same time, the team of crooks targets the Parisian property developer. With this difference: the imposters ask the accountant to contact a fake lawyer from the – real and prestigious – KPMG firm to certify the transfers. Once again, the accountant, in complete confidence, made no less than 45 successive transfers and transferred the record sum of 38 million euros. The money ends up in accounts opened in Hungary, Portugal, Croatia and Spain. The investigators quickly realized that in both cases, the same team of crooks was at work. Investigative work is then carried out, and very quickly the two accountants are exonerated. The investigation, carried out in particular with telephone tapping, makes it possible to proceed with the arrest of five people in June 2022 in Paris and in the inner suburbs. Money and false passports are discovered. A month later, thanks to the participation of the Israeli judicial police, two more people were arrested in Israel. An eighth person was arrested more recently, in January 2023 in Île-de-France.
Determine the role of each
From now on, the work of the investigators is to understand the role of each one. It appears from the first elements that the suspects arrested in France are considered “mules”, little hands responsible for opening accounts in different European countries so that the stolen money can be transferred. People “mature, confidence inspiring”, according to a source familiar with the matter, and very financially precarious people. The two people arrested in Israel are targeted in the “laundering” section of the investigation.
Since then, these eight people have been freed pending possible prosecution. Investigators seized 3.9 million euros, including 1.1 million euros in an account in Portugal, 400,000 euros in Spain. 700,000 euros were also seized in cryptocurrency by the command of the gendarmerie in cyberspace (ComCyberGend). “We are still on important seizures and it is all the tedious investigation work (…) which made it possible to seize this quite considerable sum”says Jean-Paul Douvier, the commander of the research section of Reims.