It all started with an anonymous four-line missive, with elegant writing.
“Hello Sébastien.
We do not know each other.
They told me about you, I would like to meet you.
Answer me in the box that receives the packages.
»In May 2020, Sébastien L., a 30-year-old close protection officer, said he found this letter in his mailbox.
Appointment is given with this mysterious shipper a few days later, around 2 a.m., under the bridge overlooking the ring road between the 12th arrondissement of Paris and Saint-Mandé (Val-de-Marne).
There, a man "of European type of forty years", with "a little overweight", presents himself.
Speaking with a "slight accent from Eastern Europe", this unknown visitor, "with a square mouth" and "with an expert eye", offered him "a job" barely believable: setting up a team to suppress a woman!
“It was so impressive, it was a film, it was dull, says Sébastien L. during his first appearance interview.
[…] I told him I was going to see.
This is where I started to prospect.
The young man, self-taught in private security and until then confined to the tasks of spinning unfaithful husbands, is flattered.
"Is the person you met under the ring road from the DGSI or from the DGSE?"
», Asks the examining magistrate.
“I don't know,” he admits […] In any case, he took extreme precautions.
"
A nod to the “Bureau des Légendes”
Two months after this alleged incredible meeting, an assassination project is indeed thwarted in extremis.
The cast of the protagonists would have enough to feed many spy series scenarios.
The target: Marie-Hélène D., a seemingly uneventful fifty-something, specializing in business coaching and hypnosis, domiciled in Créteil (Val-de-Marne).
The suspects: besides Sébastien L, four soldiers from the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE) and a police officer from the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI).
All were indicted for “attempted murder in an organized gang” or “complicity”.
Four are sleeping in prison.
But the real sponsor remains unknown, as well as his motives.
Was it, as some suspects maintain, a clandestine mission of the DGSE to eliminate a French woman doing interference for a foreign country?
Or a private contract hatched by a competitor jealous of his success, as the victim speculates?
"As it stands, everyone claims to have been manipulated to justify being involved in a contract that should lead to the elimination of Marie-Hélène D.", summarizes the prosecution in an order.
Between OSS 117 and the nickel-plated feet, the story would make you smile if a woman hadn't nearly lost her life.
On telephone tapping records, Crim investigators named the case "The Legends", in reference to the series "The Bureau of Legends".
Not very flattering for "Malotru".
"A little hot" missions for France
In August 2019, that is to say well before this hypothetical meeting under the ring road, Sébastien L. recruits Yannick P., a DGSI police officer on parental leave who has been converted to Internet security.
“Sébastien makes me understand in off that he carries out a little hot missions for the French State and more particularly the DGSE;
[…] He joined with his hand gestures like the person who mimics a pistol shot, ”recalls Yannick P. in custody.
The 45-year-old policeman does not know if his interlocutor is serious or a "mytho" but keeps the link with this man who also speaks to him about a contract on a Salafist living near the Swiss border.
He says he's afraid of it.
The premises of the DGSE, boulevard Mortier in Paris AFP / Martin Bureau
A few months later, in February 2020, Yannick P. was this time called upon by Pierre B. This 26-year-old soldier was assigned to guard the specialized parachute training center (CPES) in Cercottes (Loiret), where the agents of the action service of the DGSE.
He is one of his former trainees: thanks to his skills, Yannick P. carries out training in the detection of false documents for the orderlies of the secret service base.
The young soldier from the DGSE says he wants to become an e-detective.
But he also explains to him that he has "with him a group of people from the special forces" with several sensitive audit missions in progress.
He even adds that he can obtain weapons of war from eastern countries ...
"We had to put an end to her once and for all"
In April 2020, Yannick P. is organizing a meeting between Sébastien L. and Pierre B., who introduces himself in the company of his colleague from the DGSE Pierre L. The presentations take place around a lake near Orléans.
"During the meeting, Pierre B. moved away with Sébastien L. to discuss secretly […] I know that the two were delighted to have met", relates Yannick P. On the return trip, Sébastien L. speaks to the policeman on leave of a contract to be fulfilled on a coach supposed to work for the Mossad (
Editor's note: the Israeli secret services
) “We had to end her once and for all.
It was the orders of the DG, that is to say of the DGSE, ”he explains.
It is Marie-Hélène D. in question.
The story seems unlikely, but it thrives.
Pierre B., alias "Dagomar", is thoroughly.
“He told me about your business, about an unofficial contract from
Mortier
our parent company (
Editor's note: the headquarters of the DGSE is located Boulevard Mortier in Paris
).
[…] He told me that it was a contact of his who had given him the contract.
The contact, […] was […] Sébastien L. Pierre B. told me that
Mortier
sometimes gave unofficial contracts to unofficial contacts and therefore not affiliated with the DGSE who then had them executed by other people ”, tells Pierre L., alias“ Devon ”, the fourth thief of the meeting of the lake.
"And you believed him?"
“Asks the police officer while in custody.
"No", replies the soldier "Devon" who adds: "Because he is known to fabulate".
False suicide, accident or poisoning?
Faced with investigators, "Dagomar" swears that he was convinced to carry out a clandestine mission.
"Sébastien and Yannick are in a team which responds to the open files of the operations directorate of the DGSE", claims the young soldier in custody.
At the end of May at the beginning of June, he received a USB key from Sébastien L. to give him details of his assassination mission: “I was told that the person concerned by this file had been doing economic and political interference for at least 20 years.
And if the operation is supposed to be secret, he does not take any precautions with his comrades.
He first tries to recruit Pierre L. by promising him a sum of 30,000 euros to share but "Devon" refuses - he will just agree to make two recognitions.
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"Dagomar" then falls back on another colleague from the DGSE, Carl E., 26, pseudonym "Adelard".
According to "Devon", the two corporals openly discuss the best way to execute their target: false suicide, accident and even poisoning.
During the search carried out in Pierre B.'s room on the base, the police discovered handwritten notes on the cherry laurel, a poisonous plant.
Slowly but surely, the extravagant project matures.
Sébastien L. gets a tracker from Yannick P. which he places on the coach of the coaching specialist.
Several recognitions are made.
Notebooks are blackened with escape routes.
Until July 24 in the early morning.
Feeling of betrayal
Intrigued by the presence of two men in black wearing gloves in a Clio, an inhabitant of Créteil opportunely alerts the police.
Carl E. is behind the wheel of this stolen vehicle, Pierre B., who has cotton in his ears, in the passenger seat.
In a bag, a pistol with a chambered cartridge is discovered, as is a handcrafted cotton-based and applesauce wrapper - presumably to act as ... silencer.
During his transfer between the PJ and the Crim ', Pierre B. reveals, without questioning, that he is carrying out a “Homo” mission (
Editor's note: homicide
) on behalf of the action service of the DGSE with the aim of killing Marie- Hélène D. The murder was to take place the same morning, as suggested by the removal of the tracker from the victim's vehicle.
The DGSE immediately dissociated itself from this operation.
(Illustration) LP / Olivier Lejeune
When questioned, the latter confesses her amazement.
“This is beyond comprehension,” blows this successful business manager who mentions professional jealousy as a possible lead.
"But from there to wanting to kill myself, I do not believe it is completely disproportionate", she specifies, assuring not to work for any foreign service.
This coaching specialist adds that she had already been the subject of an assault on leaving her home in October 2019, perpetrated by two men out of a black Clio.
According to several respondents, Sébastien L. would have boasted of having already attacked this 54-year-old woman as a warning that she "cease her anti-state activities", which he denies.
While in custody, Carl E. seems to realize that he has been duped.
"I thought I was serving a noble cause and there I find myself in hearing to see that I put myself at odds with respect to the Republic," laments "Adelard".
[…] I've been betrayed ".
Yannick P. also confides his distress.
“I was trapped, manipulated […] I was impressed by the side that comes from the DG, from the Elysée Palace,” he says in front of the examining magistrate.
As for Sébastien L., he takes refuge behind his mysterious sponsor, without revealing his identity.
Pierre B., a "mythomaniac" who "invented the life of a secret agent"
Asked from the outset by the boss of Crim ', the DGSE immediately dissociated itself from this operation.
Long questioned at the end of July, number 3 of the Cercottes base painted a poor portrait of Pierre B., a "mythomaniac" who "invented the life of a secret agent".
"The idea was all the same to get rid of it," she points out.
A harsh portrait that contrasts with his recent evaluations.
In 2017 as in 2018, it “gives complete satisfaction”.
The opinion is more mixed in 2020: "Intelligent and willful" it is described as "very childish".
"He does not have the confidence of his section chief" but "he can claim to be one of the best in his section by maturing".
The conversations intercepted after the arrest of “Dagomar” and “Adelard” prove that the affair caused a certain stir internally.
On the phone, a supervisor lets go: "They are going to start singing in the sense that they are not going to wear their c…!"
And they're going to try to screw up as many people as possible with them.
Pierre B.'s companion also explained that she had been contacted by the DGSE during the latter's custody to inquire about the questions that were put to her.
When contacted, Me Matthieu Juglar, Sébastien L.'s lawyer, Me Calvin Job, one of Yannick P.'s counsel, and Me Marie-Alix Canu-Bernard, one of Pierre B.'s lawyers, did not not wished to speak.
