The National Directorate of Customs Intelligence and Investigations (DNRED) will be responsible from July for “intelligence regarding serious and complex tax fraud and its laundering”, according to the Official Journal, with an “elite” cell promised to long-awaited and long-awaited.
This measure was announced in May 2023 by Gabriel Attal, then Deputy Minister in charge of Public Accounts, as part of a plan aimed at combating very large frauds and particularly international fraud.
According to a decree published on Sunday in the Official Journal and which will come into force on July 1, the DNRED thus sees its missions extending to the collection, processing and dissemination of intelligence in matters of serious tax fraud on behalf of the general directorate of public finances.
Last November, the Court of Auditors, for the second time in four years, recommended the amplification of tax intelligence, noting that France does not have any rigorous assessment of tax fraud.
Parliamentarians followed suit a few days later with a report written by Charlotte Leduc (LFI), according to which the amount of tax evasion is between 80 and 120 billion euros per year.
The new unit, hosted by DNRED, attached to Bercy, complements Tracfin, responsible for financial intelligence, which cannot use intelligence techniques in matters of tax fraud except when the matter relates to organized crime, according to the minister. .
It will focus on the concealment of foreign assets in tax havens and opaque entities such as trusts, the use of tax exemption firms and the abusive optimization of large multinationals and will be able to use eavesdropping, data capture, installation of beacons, according to the government anti-fraud plan.
Gabriel Attal had announced that the cell would be made up of around a hundred elite agents by the end of the five-year term.