Euros (illustration).

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GILE MICHEL / SIPA

The damage to the State is estimated at 2.4 million euros.

The Lyon judicial police have uncovered a vast network of short-time work scams by eight ghost companies in the South-East, according to information from officials of the division for the fight against financial crime.

Three people, all known for acts of fraud, were arrested Tuesday around Saint-Étienne and in Isère.

A fourth accused was arrested in the Bouches-du-Rhône by the Marseille PJ.

30,000 euros in cash were seized from those who are suspected of being "network heads", relying on "straw managers", according to investigators.

Suspicions of Tracfin in August 2020

At the end of August, a company in the Saint-Etienne region drew the attention of Tracfin, the department of the Ministry of the Economy in charge of the fight against money laundering.

Bercy then alerts the PJ on a "suspicion of fraud in an organized gang" by noting that 400,000 euros in compensation for short-time working, linked to the health crisis, were then unduly received.

The company, which claimed to be a vehicle rental company, had declared 49 employees, each earning an average of 4,000 euros per month, while it employed none, according to a source familiar with the matter.

After a first report to the Saint-Étienne public prosecutor's office, the investigators noticed by examining the banking movements of the company that seven other companies were also recipients of undue indemnities, claiming also to exercise in the rental of vehicles or the savings of 'energy.

A vast circuit of money laundering and cross-payments between the various structures of the network is then reconstituted.

Transfers to Hong Kong

Of the 2.4 million euros in compensation paid until last month to the eight shadow companies, 1.4 million were seized by investigators for criminal assets.

Part of the evaporated million euros could have been hidden abroad, movements to Hong Kong having been discovered by the Lyon PJ.

The damage could have been even higher since in total the aigrefins had asked for 3.4 million euros in partial unemployment aid.

Above all, this case might not be the only one.

“We know that there are and will be a lot of scams in relation to all the aid mechanisms put in place by the State in this crisis.

The crooks surf on the faults of the economic system, but we do not remain without reaction in front of these phenomena, affirms Judicaële Ruby, divisional commissioner of the economic and financial section of the PJ of Lyon.

Miscellaneous

A pharmacist from Colmar indicted for a fraud amounting to 700,000 euros

Paris

New accusations of fraud at the Bobigny HLM office

  • Unemployment

  • Lyon

  • Fraud

  • Saint Etienne

  • Society