An investigating judge from the Paris court and gendarmes are currently in Israel, as observers, as part of an investigation into a partial unemployment fraud in France in which suspects have been arrested, we learned. Tuesday from judicial sources.
The arrest in Israel of several suspects is in connection with an investigation carried out by the Israeli authorities for money laundering and tax evasion in connection with a judicial investigation opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office under the National Jurisdiction in charge of the fight against organized crime (Junalco) financial on January 5, 2021, said this source in Paris.
According to sources close to the case in Israel, they are four men and a woman, all Israelis. They are suspected of having laundered part of the money and converted the sums into cryptocurrencies.
Israeli police on Monday arrested three main suspects and a number of others suspected of belonging to a criminal organization that allegedly usurped the legal name and identification number of existing companies to seek the payment of compensation in France in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Fraudsters then allegedly laundered tens of millions of shekels using complex cryptocurrency mechanisms.
The suspects were taken into custody for questioning, Israeli police said.
An investigating judge from Junalco as well as investigators from the Central Office for the Fight against Illegal Labor (OCLTI) and the Toulouse research section in charge of investigations (in France) are in Israel as observers , said the judicial source.
The judicial information in France for scams and attempts in an organized gang, money laundering in an organized gang and association of criminals concerns almost 4,000 fraudulent requests for compensation for partial unemployment, she said.
The damage to the state is estimated at 8.5 million euros, according to a document consulted by AFP.
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Three people have been indicted since June 2021 in this case, including a 31-year-old man who has been remanded in custody.
The man is notably suspected of having opened bank accounts and bounced accounts in Lithuania into which public funds and laundered funds were paid. He denies being the leader of this scam, according to his lawyer Me Philippe Ohayon.
This procedure underlines the quality of the cooperation between Junalco and the Israeli judicial authorities as well as the perfect police cooperation in the fight against the scams carried out from Israel against French victims, estimated the judicial source.
Cryptocurrency crime is on the rise and police in Israel are developing technological tools to deal with it, David Katz, head of the Cybercrime Unit at the police’s anti-corruption unit, Lahav told AFP. 433. Cooperation between the French and Israeli police is excellent and is getting stronger, he added.
According to close sources, the Israeli police view with extreme severity the crimes of fraud against France and other countries and work to fight against these crimes by all means.