Since the start of the crisis, aid to offset the side effects of the fight against Covid has been available.

But to avoid business fraud, the Directorate General of Finance has set up a "task force", responsible for tracking down fraud in the solidarity fund.

"Whatever the cost": these words, repeated by President Emmanuel Macron since the start of the health crisis, illustrate the state's desire to compensate as much as possible the sectors most affected by what has also become a cataclysm economic.

And indeed billions have been spent.

Since March 2020, 18 billion have thus come to supplement the solidarity fund for companies, the self-employed and entrepreneurs who see their activity hard hit.

A device welcomed on Thursday by the Court of Auditors in its annual report. 

But the magistrates of the rue Cambon pointed out a pitfall: the risk of fraud.

A risk taken into account by the government which decided to create a "task force" to track down scams.

No less than 50 tax officials have thus been seconded to join this special unit, whose offices are located in Pantin in the Paris region, in the premises of the General Tax Directorate.

Europe 1 was able to go there to follow the work of the unit.

Huge sums at stake

At the head of the team, Maxime Gautier, the general manager of the large companies department.

"Initially, all requests for solidarity funds go through the control of the artificial intelligence of our computer system", she explains to Europe 1. "And when an anomaly is detected, the file is transferred to us so that 'a human being takes over and checks why the file is irregular. "

Essential work, when the amounts involved are important and keep increasing.

At the start of the crisis, the government offered aid of 1,500 euros to almost all companies with less than 10 employees who had a significant drop in their turnover.

The money was then paid within 48 hours of the request.

But the device has evolved a lot since, the amounts have increased to 10,000 euros for the most affected sectors, then up to a ceiling of 200,000 euros.

And "1,500 and 200,000 euros, it's not the same thing", points out Maxime Gautier.

"It is therefore important that beyond certain sums, there is a reinforced control to avoid fraud."

When IT needs people

IT therefore reports anomalies, but it is then the members of this "task force" who check why the file is potentially contentious.

This is the work of Candice, 28, in particular.

Among his files of the day, a restaurateur whose IBAN, bank identifier, poses a problem.

The young woman will therefore check if the account belongs to the company, since the money is paid into the account of the company and not that of the manager.

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There is also this hotel, whose declared turnover does not correspond to the information of the tax services.

The General Directorate of Finance can then request additional supporting documents and then accept or reject the request.

If the company considers that this refusal is not justified, it must then make a new request.

Between involuntary errors and obvious fraud

In the majority of cases, these are unintentional errors, linked to complex files to complete.

But the "task force" also regularly identifies obvious fraud.

"These are dormant companies which suddenly wake up, or companies created especially to apply for solidarity funds", lists François, the team leader. 

Another recurring fraud: groups that request assistance for each of their entity while the ceiling is set at 200,000 euros for the whole of the company.

Some structures make up to ten requests for the same group.

"If we accept these requests, we would have to pay 2 million euros, while the ceiling is at 200,000 euros", explains François.

A rise to come

In two months, the "task force" combed through 10,000 files and rejected about 15% of them.

The team of 50 people should soon be reinforced since it will also be the one who will have to check the requests for support of the fixed costs of the companies.

A device which must come into force on March 31.

It will make it possible to absorb 70% of the fixed costs of companies which generate more than one million euros in turnover per month.

The aid can then reach up to 10 million euros.