It all started from a banal discussion on the coronavirus between two friends on February 29. One says there is money to be made with the shortage of masks looming. The other immediately scrolls the ads on the Leboncoin site. Within seconds, the matter was heard. The first transaction is a success. The second, more important, turns to collapse. And that's how in a few days, three young people in their twenties found themselves in police custody at the start of the week in Maisons-Alfort.
This Friday evening, they were placed under judicial supervision and released. "We opened a judicial investigation for swindle in organized gang and participation in an association of criminals", said this Sunday the parquet floor of Créteil.
They put their stake back into play
At the beginning, it works like clockwork. In Saint-Etienne (Loire), a seller offers 8,000 FFP2 masks (the most common model reserved for medical personnel) for one euro each and 20,000 even less expensive surgical masks. The friends solicit their relatives and manage to collect the 11,000 euros requested. Once purchased, the goods are sold on March 2 for a total of 23,500 euros to two buyers.
It's so easy that they call back the seller from Saint-Etienne and put the 23,500 euros on the table. They leave with 9,100 FFP2 masks which they will repackage and 42,000 surgical masks. Here they are with 40,000 euros. Let them spend March 4 to buy 40,000 FFP2 masks in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône). The problem is that the expiration date, September 2012, is marked on the goods. Never mind, they erase it after buying bottles of solvent. They are there with their flourishing business when an overly curious neighbor ruins everything.
"No health impact," says lawyer
In the premises where all the goods were stored, the investigators even found 2.8 kg of cannabis with, it seems, a THC (which gives the hovering effect) close to zero. According to a source close to the investigation, conducted by the Maisons-Alfort police, the young person to whom she belonged had tried to get into the therapeutic drug business, at the time when a criminal vagueness surrounded this trade . In any case, he is no longer prosecuted for possession of narcotic drugs in the context of the Maisons-Alfort affair.
What are they risking today? "They did not know that the goods they were buying were stolen," said Mathias Darmon, one of the lawyers for the indictments. They are novices of the scam. We are not in front of an organized gang. And what about the expiration date problem? "There was no health impact," said Grégory Bensadoun, also a lawyer for the same young man. A mask cannot be used for more than 10 years. For the rest, it's a bit like an expired drug. They did not endanger anyone. "