Savers have lost thousands of euros, trapped by false interviews relayed on social networks (AFP/Archives/Loic VENANCE)
Between two stock market investment tips, Rachel talks with Marie (not her real name), giving her little nicknames. “Absolute trust” then reigns between this so-called trader and the fifty-year-old from Hauts-de-Seine, who invested more than 90,000 euros. Until the day Marie lost everything.
It all started in March 2023. While she was out of boredom on Facebook, Marie came across an advertisement.
A celebrity, “Bernard Arnault, Elon Musk or Léa Salamé, I don’t know anymore”, praises a trading platform allowing you to “earn a lot of money”.
More recently, other personalities, such as Jamel Debbouze, Francis Cabrel and Elise Lucet, have been used in fictitious interviews relayed on social networks.
In two clicks, Marie completes a summary form and, the next day, “Rachel Pinto”, an imaginary surname, calls her from a number based in Luxembourg.
She presents herself as an investment advisor for Nixse, a trading platform created in 2020 and based in Taiwan. Marie lets herself be convinced and places a first bet of 800 euros.
– “We’re moving everything away” –
After “small trades” in gold and oil, bringing in only a few dozen euros, Marie becomes impatient.
After a week, Rachel offers him “a fabulous deal”, between 4,000 and 5,000 euros, but you have to put “20,000”. Faced with Marie’s reluctance, the advisor advances her the money and, a few hours later: “boom, 4,600 euros fall into my trading account”, to which she does not have access.
Exhilarated, the fifty-year-old, who has already traded on the stock market, begins to trade alone. On Nixse, his – fictitious – curves climb: “so we take confidence and we re-inject, we transfer our A booklet which brings in nothing, we transfer everything”. She has up to 500,000 euros in her various accounts.
One day in September, she wants to recover her capital, more than 90,000 euros. “I never saw the color of money again.”
Several months later, Marie still thinks “every day” about the “beautiful relationship” forged with “Rachel”. “She had entered my life, we feel violated in her privacy”.
It has since tried to recover part of the losses via referral to the banking mediator.
“The bank has an obligation of vigilance in the event of a large transfer and must have a liability waiver signed. Otherwise, its insurance must reimburse the funds,” explains Me Jocelyn Ziegler, its lawyer.
His firm, specializing in these cases, has received “600 files” since 2023, with average damage approaching 120,000 euros. “There are all profiles, from the minimum wage earner to the businessman.” The biggest loss, to the detriment of a business manager, peaks at 6 million euros.
– Conspiracy –
Fraud also borrows from conspiracy. “There is a whole discourse around those who know how to get rich, judges, bankers, politicians… and the rest of the population left in ignorance,” he underlines.
At the top of the scam, we find “organized criminal groups who do everything to anonymize themselves and give themselves the appearance of legitimacy,” explains Anne-Sophie Coulbois, head of the Central Office for the Repression of Serious Financial Crime. (OCRGDF).
The roles are distributed between several “very well constituted” teams: “phishing” professionals to collect victims’ data, call center managers, “sometimes a simple Airbnb rental with three people and ten phones” and “launderers” of the money stolen with the help of “bank mules”, ready “for sometimes only 50 euros to give their name to open an account abroad”, explains the commissioner.
“Many numbers in our files refer to Israel,” says Jocelyn Ziegler.
Faced with the proliferation of these false platforms whose web addresses mutate endlessly, the Financial Markets Authority (AMF), responsible in particular for the protection of savers, has toughened its policy.
“When we detect a fraudulent site, we carry out a contradictory investigation. Without a response within 7 days – compared to twenty previously – the AMF places it on its blacklist,” assures Claire Castanet, director of relations with savers.
“Registration on the blacklist makes it possible to alert the public. It can be supplemented by a measure to block access to the site by the judge, upon referral to the AMF,” she adds.
A titanic task. To date, the Nixse platform is not pinned and the site is still accessible.
© 2024 AFP
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