The sun and the palm trees, the beach and the desert, then, on arrival, the custody cell of the Cergy police station.
It is a somewhat brutal return to reality that an inhabitant of Val-d'Oise has just experienced upon returning from a week-long stay in Dubai.
The Cergy urban security police had been waiting for him since they had identified this young man in his twenties and suspected him of selling health passes on the Internet and of having made a nice profit.
Judicial information to shed light on all aspects of the case, to establish possible connections with other identical cases, was opened by the Pontoise prosecutor's office.
The suspect was referred this Thursday at the end of his police custody and indicted for fraud by an examining magistrate of Pontoise.
He came out free, placed under judicial supervision.
The identifiers of a doctor used by the forger
It was at the end of August that the Cergy investigators were alerted to the suspicious activity of this Val-d'Oisien, very present on social networks to sell vaccination certificates. The price is generally set at 250 euros, as evidenced by the proposals made by the respondent on Snapchat or Instagram. False health passes for "clients" who refuse vaccination were activated via Ameli, the Social Security software, using a doctor's password and credentials. The beneficiaries then appear as having completed a complete vaccination course in the event of a check-up.
The young man would have managed to sell around 400, earning in total a sum of money estimated by the police at around 100,000 euros.
A sum to be put in relation to the significant expenses observed by the investigation, which must also determine whether the doctor's identifiers essential for the operation were obtained without his knowledge, and by what channel in this case.
An alleged accomplice placed under judicial control
The young man would have admitted the facts, indicating to have operated for approximately three months.
A woman was also arrested by the police.
She is suspected of having provided him with assistance by providing some sort of accounting and managing payments to beneficiaries.
She was also placed under judicial supervision following her indictment.
This type of fraud was already noted in Versailles, last August, after a secretary of the vaccination center of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines discovered that 111 people had benefited from false certificates.
They were in possession of a real-fake QR code allowing them to live as if they had a valid health pass.
The investigation showed that the doctor who allegedly vaccinated the patients was in fact on vacation at the time.
Read alsoFake vaccination certificates: how two networks were dismantled
This Thursday, the National Health Insurance Fund (Cnam) said at a press conference that the hunt for false health passes was well underway: 350 procedures were initiated, targeting some 270 caregivers suspected of fraud.
The CNAM estimates that 36,000 insured are suspected of having benefited from false passes and indicates that it collaborates "actively" with the investigation services and the justice system to fight against fraud in vaccination certificates.
The CNAM claims to have received 262 requisitions from the authorities since June, which relate to 14 vaccination centers, 138 health professionals and 35,709 insured.
Added to this are the 83 procedures launched by the local funds targeting 31 caregivers, 23 other people who contributed to the fraud and 253 potential beneficiaries.
The offenses linked to "fraudulent vaccination certificates" are punishable by heavy penalties: up to five years' imprisonment and a fine of 150,000 euros for counterfeiters, three years and 45,000 euros for users.
Not to mention that the holders of a true-false QR code who would finally decide on the vaccination in due form would encounter a difficulty: that of appearing as already vaccinated.
