Three spies, an expert in false documents, a specialist in close security and… a coach-hypnotist. These are, according to our information, the protagonists of the very mysterious assassination project involving agents of the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE), foiled on July 24 in Paris. A case sensitive to the hints of "barbouzerie" whose investigation begins to reveal its secrets. Without answering the crucial question: who ordered this operation?
Spies caught red-handed
That night of July 23-24, two young men are driving around in a stolen car, disguised as a false license plate, in the streets of the capital. Both would have stolen the vehicle a little earlier Porte de Vincennes by breaking one of the windows. They head straight for a residential area of Créteil (Val-de-Marne) then park in front of a residence, on the lookout for the movements of a resident. Their behavior is apparently suspicious enough for a neighbor of the watched woman to call the police early in the morning and report "prowlers" ... This fortuitous call officially appears as the trigger for the investigation.
When they arrived at 8:20 am, the police checked the two suspects. And go from surprises to surprises. They found gloves, army knives and, in the vehicle on the passenger side, a red bag containing a 9mm pistol with a chambered cartridge. Placed in police custody, the two “prowlers” identify themselves as Pierre B. and Karl E., 28 and 25 years old, two agents of the “action service” of the DGSE. Either the most sensitive department of the secret services to which we attribute the realization of clandestine assassinations abroad with the unofficial approval of the State. But the two roommates, just returned to "the box", would more specifically have missions of surveillance and protection of military sites.
An official mission?
Led to the premises of the anti-terrorism section (SAT) of the Paris criminal brigade because of their secret-defense clearance, the two corporals made a shocking revelation: they would be on an official mission for the DGSE. Pierre B. affirms that they were ordered to kill a 54-year-old woman living in Créteil by firearm. She is a psychotherapist, master of hypnosis and specialist in business coaching. The murder was to be committed that very morning. Karl E. says he does not know all the ins and outs but that this is his first field mission. The geolocations of their phones show a posteriori several locations near the home of this woman apparently without history in previous weeks.
To the investigators, the two soldiers repeat that their hierarchy will get them out of this custody which, in their eyes, is only a misunderstanding. Until the police took them to their rooms at the Specialized Parachute Training Center (CPES) in Saran (Loiret) - one of the sites of the DGSE action service - in order to conduct searches. No officer interposes or comes to their aid ...
Did the two agents lie to cover private litigation, as initial indications suggested? The investigation did not uncover any direct or indirect link between the suspects and the fifty-year-old. Were they paid by a third party to carry out the assassination? The thesis is attractive - the delivery of a sum of money of 30,000 euros has been mentioned in particular - except that the file is riddled with inconsistencies. In police custody, one of the suspects provides a disturbing, even unimaginable, explanation. According to him, the DGSE cannot commit assassinations on French soil and would therefore subcontract these dirty work to private security companies. This is how the criminal police identify two new suspects in contact with the agents. Two characters with intriguing profiles arrested on July 26 and 30.
An unlikely casting
The first is a man at the head of a security company specializing in close protection. It excels in what is called "dusting", that is to say, the detection of spyware placed in homes or businesses without the knowledge of tenants or employees. It also offers to ensure secure transfers of convoys, especially jewelry. "He took himself for James Bond," says a person who knew him.
This man was presented to the two agents of the DGSE through the intermediary of the other suspect, who is none other than a… former member of the DGSI, internal intelligence. Now a legal expert for a court in the Paris region, he runs a company specializing in the detection of false documents. Presenting himself as a man having "officiated in the most prestigious services of the French government", in particular "in the fight against terrorism", he offers anti-fraud training but also "e-detective" services. This involves carrying out research on the “Deepweb”, the non-emergent part of the Internet, using computerized requests in order to find sensitive or compromising information on a target. These trainings, the suspect dispenses them to a private clientele but… also to the DGSE. It was also while giving courses in the premises of the foreign intelligence service that he met the agents involved. An official link that questions.
Did one of these two external providers recruit the two soldiers? Was the DGSE aware of this and gave an implicit endorsement? Mystery. In custody, the two men denied being the masterminds of the operation. The four suspects were indicted for "attempted murder in an organized gang" or "complicity" and were imprisoned. A third 26-year-old DGSE agent, in contact with Pierre B. and Karl E., was also indicted but was placed under judicial supervision.
The mobile remains unknown
In this file full of manipulation and cover-up, the sponsor of the assassination project remains to this day unidentified. As well as the motivations that led him to order the killing of a psychotherapist that none of the accused seemed to know personally. Unless this woman presents an interest still unknown ... Questioned by the investigators, this one said she was very shocked and put forward the hypothesis of enmities linked to her association of coaches and support professionals. But recruiting DGSE agents and requesting execution to settle such a dispute seems totally disproportionate.
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“We are in the Bermuda Triangle,” says someone close to the case. There are still a lot of gray areas. It is not yet clear where we are going but, at this stage, there is no reason to say that this is a completely private matter. According to a source close to the investigation, "no track is privileged more than another".