Morbihan: in prison, he defrauded taxes from his cell

With sixteen mentions in his criminal record and twelve years spent behind bars for various scams, this 62-year-old former soldier is no longer at his first attempt.

His favored target is the tax authorities, whom he has already deceived at least three times.

This time, the damage would be around 20,000 euros, redistributed to his bank account in the form of tax credits.

The scam would have taken place between April and December 2019, while the sixty-year-old was imprisoned in Lorient-Ploemeur prison (Morbihan).

From the computers of the penitentiary center, the inmate filled out tax declaration forms in the name of fictitious first-time filers, added false donations to charities allowing them to benefit from tax credits, all at a false address.

He then called small tax centers to be surprised at the non-payment of the sums and provided new bank details for the payment of the money.

We "sanction him for all of his work"

The man is also being prosecuted for having received undue benefits from the Loire-Atlantique family allowance fund (CAF) between September 2019 and June 2020, the date of his indictment and pre-trial detention.

Housing allowances fell every month for an apartment that he no longer occupied… since it was housed by the prison administration.

"He recognizes all the facts and he offers to reimburse the damage, pleads his lawyer Me Pierre-Yves Launay.

By keeping him in pre-trial detention while he offers good guarantees, justice punishes him for all of his work ”.

In these times of health crisis, the sexagenarian would present a pathology making him vulnerable to the coronavirus.

Before finding himself within four walls, the con artist had led a life of adventure and travel.

Enlisted in the French Navy in the 1970s, he then spent ten years in Djibouti.

But his first wife tragically dies in a terrorist attack.

From that moment on, he said he was attracted to "adrenaline related to transgression".

Back in civilian life, he embarked on a series of projects that plunged him into financial trouble.

It was then that he fell into delinquency and the first scams.

A "paradoxical" detention for his lawyer

Fraud, forgery, use of forgery, breach of trust, the convictions follow one another and are linked, adding to each other to never end.

He will ultimately remain in detention for twelve years before his release from prison in September 2019. His last major conviction, to three years in prison, dates back to 2016, when he was given more than 75,000 euros in premiums for employment. by the Public Treasury.

He had done exactly the same as the previous time, from prison, without attracting suspicion for months.

Today, this man with gray curls who attracts sympathy assures that he "will not do it again".

Hard to believe for the prosecution which requires that it waits for the end of the investigation behind bars, in order to avoid "the renewal of the offense".

The request is paradoxical "since the man commits his misdeeds from prison", observes his lawyer.

But the investigating chamber confirmed the rejection of his request for release.