A Maserati, Porsches, BMWs and even high-end motorhomes… The gendarmes dismantled a network of crooks who sold luxury cars acquired fraudulently on credit with false identities, for an injury estimated at 2 million 'euros, announced Saturday the research section of Bordeaux in a statement.
Tuesday, a large-scale operation which mobilized 90 gendarmes made it possible to arrest in Gironde, in the Var and in the Pyrenees-Orientales eight men and two women suspected to degrees of having participated in this scam.
Twenty-two sports vehicles seized
The first suspicions appeared in 2018 after a complaint for "identity theft" and "swindle" filed with the gendarmerie brigade of Saint-Médard-en-Jalles, by a credit organization which faced an unpaid loan. Investigators have established that "very many luxury vehicles" had been purchased from dealerships throughout France with funding obtained from false papers "before being sold illegally".
The "careful investigations" revealed "about sixty facts, the total damage of which is estimated at two million euros. The searches led to the seizure of nearly 1 million euros, including 22 sports vehicles, fifteen weapons and nearly 300,000 euros in assets.
The alleged brain arrested in the Var
Faced with "the scale and complexity of this scam", the case had been entrusted to "an investigation group exclusively dedicated to the treatment of this case", under the direction of an investigating judge, the press release said. the Bordeaux research section, co-created with the Mérignac research brigade and the Bordeaux interdepartmental research group.
At the end of the hearings, the ten suspects were charged, three of whom were imprisoned and seven placed under strict judicial control. Arrested in the Var, the presumed brain of the group, who lived under a false identity, was already targeted by an arrest warrant for similar acts.
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