- Six people, including three officials, are on trial for driver's license fraud.
- Several people would have benefited from this network of false permits.
- The main defendants face up to ten years in prison
Save yourself from tedious hours of driving and the stress of an exam whose success rate is less than 60% * against several thousand euros. A vast case of driver's license fraud will occupy from this Wednesday and for two days the 15th chamber of the correctional court of Nanterre, in Hauts-de-Seine. The case, revealed in 2016, had caused a stir because investigations had shown that not only had several personalities used it, but that the man suspected of having put it in place was none other than the husband of singer Amel Bent, Patrick Antonelli. This former manager of a driving school in Neuilly-sur-Seine appears in particular for "corruption" and "laundering" alongside three officials from the police headquarters. Two men presented as intermediaries are also tried.
To obtain the precious pink sesame, customers paid up to 12,000 euros. Their file was then transmitted to an accomplice within the prefecture who validated the file in the national file of driving licenses without them needing to appear for the examination. Customers received the allowed "true-false" in their mailbox a few weeks later. Between the fall of 2013 and the month of April 2015, when the prefecture itself gave the alert, around a hundred files were thus validated. In total, this juicy traffic would have allowed Patrick Antonelli and his main accomplice within the prefecture to garner nearly a million euros.
Stars among the beneficiaries
According to the former driving school manager, who admitted the facts, the earnings were divided equally. The prefecture official, she said she only received gifts, including concert tickets for Amel Bent or perfume. It also contradicts the number of fraudulent permits imputed to it: out of 74, it admits having carried out around thirty. The investigations nevertheless made it possible to show that she had made trips during this period to sumptuous hotels in Dubai or the Dominican Republic. When he left the prefecture in April 2014, the system was perpetuated by two colleagues, confused by the multiple uses of their access codes in fraudulent files. The latter refute the charges.
If, according to the investigations of the Hauts-de-Seine judicial police and the regional intervention group, the Asian clientele represents nearly a third of the beneficiaries of this scam, the notables of Neuilly as well as several stars would also have appealed to the illegal services of this driving school. The organizer of France Inter and France 5, Ali Baddou was one of the first to admit on his Twitter account to have made a "huge mistake" by paying 10,000 euros after a false intensive motorcycle course. Several footballers, including Jérémy Ménez or PSG player Layvin Kurzawa have also benefited from his "services". The beneficiaries of these rigged permits - which have all been canceled - will be the subject of a separate procedure.
Our driving license dossier
Patrick Antonelli faces ten years in prison for "active corruption" and a fine of up to one million euros. Civil servants, by virtue of their status, also face up to ten years in prison for "passive corruption". When contacted, the lawyers of the main defendants declined to speak.
* 2018 figures
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- Corruption
- Driver's license
- Trial
- Paris
- Justice