Suspended prison sentences as well as significant fines, up to 100,000 euros. The first trial in France in a case of fake judicial summons scams is nearing its end in Paris before the 13th criminal chamber.
This Monday, January 29, after two weeks of hearing, the prosecution requested sentences ranging from ten months in prison suspended to 36 months including 24 months suspended. The requested fines range from 10,000 euros to 100,000 euros.
This trial for fraudulent access to an automated data processing system, fraud and money laundering by an organized gang follows a judicial raid unveiled last June. Most of the fourteen defendants implicated after two years of investigation are men from West Africa living in France and aged between twenty and thirty years.
Money trail
In the end, the investigation by the gendarmes and police officers of the central office did not make it possible to identify a structured mafia behind the sending of these unwanted emails, supposedly sent by the director general of the national gendarmerie or other eminent personalities from the legal world. On the contrary, the investigations revealed “a multiplicity of organizations” duplicating the same operating mode, summarized Sophie Gschwind, the deputy prosecutor.
To identify the fourteen suspects, the investigators followed the money trail, an “extremely difficult” investigation into money laundering. The victims were invited to make transfers to accounts in France, opened in the names of the mules or using false identities.
Essential bank account openings: without these, this method of transit was no longer possible. The money then quickly left for Ivory Coast. But beyond opening accounts, most of those involved were, believes the prosecution, “autonomous in taking action”, also carrying out their own scams.
Money-making scam
The well-known fake judicial summons scam method is in fact quite simple to reproduce. It is based on the mass sending of generic emails claiming to have detected the recipient’s involvement, for example with a consultation of a child pornography site. The authors of the message then assure that legal proceedings will be launched unless a fine is paid.
This fake court summons scam, which resulted in the suicide of at least six victims, can be very profitable. At the end of the investigation, around 3 million euros in payments were identified, ranging from 1,400 euros to 90,000 euros, coming from victims with an average age of around 60 years. Finally, 287 complaints were filed.
These figures are, however, “a very low estimate” of the real number of victims, reported Sophie Gschwind. Faced with the scale of this campaign, which peaked in 2021, the Paris cyber prosecutor’s office also questioned the implementation of a botnet. A working hypothesis ultimately not confirmed.