Covid premium fraud: a vast international money laundering network dismantled


The total amount of laundering is estimated at 12 million euros.

Eleven men were indicted for participating in a “extensive laundering networkInternational estimated at 12 million euros and relating in particular to misappropriation of undue partial unemployment bonuses during the Covid pandemic, we learned from the Rennes prosecutor’s office.

French building companies sent sums, sometimesby hundreds of thousands of euros, to empty shell companies, also French, with no apparent counterpart and in support of false invoices“, detailed the prosecutor Philippe Astruc in a press release.

These sums were then redirected by the ‘taxi companies’ to bank accounts in Turkey or China, to companies in particular for the purchase of vehicles or jewelery stores, with the aim of recovering cash.“, indicates the magistrate, confirming information from the daily West France . The total amount of laundering is estimated at 12 million euros. More than two million have already been seized”on the assets of the people involved“.

The host of this network, a 41-year-old man born in Turkey and “unknown to justice“, was arrested at his home in Orne on June 9, and placed in pre-trial detention following his indictment. On October 5, ten leaders of the French building companies implicated were arrested in particular for “concealed work and organized money laundering“during a police operation carried out”simultaneously in the departments of Ille-et-Vilaine, Val d’Oise, Oise and Mayenne.»

The ten men, some of whom were known to the courts – in particular for concealed work – were all placed under judicial supervision. This double net puts an end to an investigation carried out for almost two years by the specialized interregional jurisdiction (JIRS) of Rennes.


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