Toulouse: the gendarmes confronted with the geniuses of cyberscams from the Franco-Israeli underworld
The Toulouse military dismantled a vast network of partial unemployment scams set up by the Franco-Israeli community. Eight million euros have been recovered but the brains of the “breakage” are still running.
The leader of the group comes from the Franco-Israeli background, undisputed master of cyber scams.
He is suspected of having committed more than 3,500 acts of partial unemployment fraud for a total amount of 12 million euros. This 32-year-old individual was arrested last summer in the Paris region with relatives and members of his family. At one of them, the investigators seized an astronomical sum in cash.
The case had been entrusted by the highest judicial authorities in the country to the SR (research section) of Toulouse, renowned for its know-how in the fight against cybercrime and to the OCLTI (central office for the fight against illegal). The real sponsors of this gigantic scam would be in Israel. One of them would have been identified but the road to extradition and the possible holding of a possible trial is still long… To date, the accused persons remain presumed innocent.
“The state had opened the floodgates wide”
Éric Aguilar knows the business well. This policeman, freshly converted into the private sector, headed the financial division of the Toulouse SR, with his team (financial investigators, cyberinvestigators, big data specialists), managed to bring back eight million euros in unduly given aid: “In peak of the health crisis, the government had to deal with such an economic disaster that it opened the floodgates wide. There were hundreds and hundreds of thousands of benefits to process in a very short time. Inevitably, it was necessary to let go of the ballast on the controls. The Franco-Israeli “milieu” and, to a minimal degree, Asian criminal organizations have rushed into the breach”.
Ghost companies
The current boss of ACSFP, a company specializing in financial cybersecurity, explains how these crooks went about siphoning off state coffers: “The digitization of the economy is the key element. Initially, they open an online account with a false identity and create phantom companies by presenting false activity reports with false Siret numbers. They recover partial unemployment on their online accounts. »
Then everything goes very quickly. In a few seconds, the money is transferred to another bank before going to several so-called “bounce” accounts with four parts of Europe before this sum lands in Asia or another continent, then it is transformed into cryptocurrency via official change platforms. “They respect the legislation in force but it’s very easy to fool them with a false identity” explains Eric Aguilar.
The sums are then converted into cash using bogus bank cards with withdrawals of 2,000 euros in 2,000 euros.
Laundering in Bitcoin
For the former policeman, the irruption in cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Ether, etc.) on the financial field has been a blessing for scammers. “Before, to launder dirty money, it was quite tedious, the criminals went through prostitution, narcotics or slot machines. With these new means of payment totally outside the circuits of traditional banks, everything is much faster and almost anonymous,” he explains.
France has acquired new means to fight against cybercrime, in particular with the creation of the Anssi (national agency for the security of information systems), but according to the specialist in tax fraud, this scourge can only be contained on an international scale: “It’s a bit like the fight against doping, cheaters are always one step ahead. There is a lack of real cooperation at the global level. The gendarmes or the police manage to locate the delinquents but cannot go further due to the lack of agreements received between France and the third country. »