Sentences of up to four years in prison were handed down on Friday in Limoges against around fifteen people prosecuted for a vast renovation work fraud which caused more than 200 victims.
The main protagonist, a forty-year-old officially commercial director of the company BDPA Rénovation but considered by the prosecution to be its de facto manager, was sentenced to five years in prison, one of which was suspended for three years, and a fine of 50,000 euros. .
The criminal court issued a committal warrant against the defendant, a repeat offender, who did not attend the deliberations.
His sentence was accompanied by a permanent ban on running a business, among other measures.
His partner, legal representative of the company, also absent on Friday, was sentenced to three years in prison, including 18 months suspended on probation for three years, and a fine of 20,000 euros, with a ban on managing a company for 10 years.
“Drawer customers”
The couple and the other defendants - agency directors, facilitators and BDPA salespeople - appeared in November for organized gang fraud, abuse of weakness and deceptive and aggressive commercial practices.
Between October 2018 and January 2023 in Haute-Vienne, Dordogne, Allier, Lot, Gironde, Loir-et-Cher and Eure-et-Loir, the courts accused them of having forced their victims , aged on average 80 years, to sign contracts for insulation and energy renovation work, sometimes committing them to the tune of several tens of thousands of euros.
“
Drawer customers
”, in their own words, to whom they returned several times to multiply quotes and invoices.
By filming themselves alongside their victims, all smiles and thumbs up as a sign of success, to share these images on a social network once the contracts have been signed.
“
It was a stupid game
,” they regretted at the hearing.
“
A game of the worst baseness, which takes advantage of human distress
,” the president of the court retorted, taking the example of a victim defrauded of 135,000 euros.
The investigation identified more than a thousand clients, including 227 as civil parties, but most were absent from the hearing, too vulnerable and elderly to travel.
The other defendants were sentenced to sentences ranging from one year in prison, served under electronic surveillance, to twelve months suspended, all accompanied by fines, with salespeople prohibited from door-to-door canvassing.