False veterinary certificates for real kittens.
The investigation that the Nanterre public prosecutor's office has just opened aims to determine the extent of traffic in cats, sold on the Le Bon Coin site, with false health checks.
Two men were taken into custody on Monday and released on Wednesday, but investigations are only just beginning.
The case begins with the complaint for fraud filed Sunday by a resident of Asnières.
This man says he bought a kitten via Le bon Coin.
Seduced by the animal featured on the online ad, the meeting with the seller was set in the lobby of a building in the city.
Against 300 euros, the price previously agreed, the man left with the kitten.
And the essential veterinary certificate attesting in particular to the animal's health check-up.
Certificate stamped with the name of a Seine-et-Marne veterinarian.
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Back home, when the new owner of the little feline tried to contact the vet, he discovered that the veterinarian did not exist.
So he understood that he had just been deceived.
To confuse the alleged trafficker, in agreement with the police, the man contacted the seller again, claiming to want to buy a second cat.
13 cats and kittens found in unsanitary accommodation
Appointment was again made in Asnières but this time, no exchange of money and animals.
The seller, 25, was arrested and taken into police custody.
His apartment, in Seine-Saint-Denis, was searched: no cat.
From then on, the investigators studied his relations and contacts and established that he was in contact with an animal supplier established, him, in the 14th arrondissement of Paris.
In this 34-year-old man, the police found eight kittens and five adult felines, kept in this unsanitary accommodation, in appalling conditions.
The thirty-something was in turn placed in police custody, in particular for animal abuse.
According to the first elements of the investigation, it was also he who provided the fake veterinary certificates, which he bought blank but with a real-fake veterinary stamp on Snapchat, for 60 euros.
Did he work with other salespeople?
Who provided him with the false certificates?
Where do cats come from?
The judicial inquiry aims to answer all these questions.
