Five people, including four Beninese nationals, have been sent to trial, accused of fraud against some forty victims via the identity theft of agricultural equipment and construction companies, we learned Friday, November 18 with the gendarmerie and the prosecutor’s office.
The suspects, including the French companion of one of the Beninese, were arrested in the Paris region, in central and southern France, following a year and a half of investigation by the Research Section of the gendarmerie of Lille, detailed a military source, confirming information from the Voix du Nord.
Placed under judicial control
Prosecuted for organized fraud and money laundering, the suspects were brought to the Dunkirk prosecutor’s office on Thursday. They were placed under judicial supervision, with a bond of 1,000 to 5,000 euros, including a ban on leaving the territory and issuing checks, the prosecution told AFP.
Read the fileBig scams: the incredible audacity of professional scammers
They would have usurped the digital identity of four companies that do not have a website, to trick customers by offering them to buy fictitious equipment, according to the source within the gendarmerie. About forty victims, natural and legal persons, have been identified, in France, Europe and as far as the United States. Injury “reassembled and estimated” is 520,000 euros, but the gains of the network, of which “the brain would be in Benin“, have “probably been much higher“, said the prosecution.
The gendarmerie was put on the track in Wormhout (North), after a customer had claimed from one of the contractors targeted the tractor he believed to have bought. Investigators “succeeded in overcoming all the screens“Set up by the sector to prevent the tracing of money flows, we welcomed the gendarmerie.
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