A doctor from Val-de-Marne suspected of having sold at least 220 fake health passes was indicted and remanded in custody Thursday evening, the Créteil prosecutor's office said on Friday, requested by AFP.
Read also 36,000 false health passes presumed in the viewfinder of Health Insurance
About twenty customers also receive fines ranging from 800 to 1,500 euros, according to a source familiar with the matter. The doctor was arrested Tuesday and taken into custody, with two alleged accomplices, a 53-year-old woman and a 49-year-old man, as part of an investigation for "
aggravated swindle
" and "
false administrative
". The man was indicted for "
complicity in aggravated fraud
" and "
money laundering
", under judicial supervision. The woman was placed under the intermediary status of assisted witness for "
aggravated complicity in fraud
", a less incriminating status than that of indicted.
The indicted doctor, aged 56, has a practice in the small town of Joinville-le-Pont, south-east of Paris.
He is suspected of having sold at least 220 false passes, for a price displayed at 1000 euros each.
These falsification cases linked to the Covid-19 pandemic often implicate "
people employed in vaccination centers (...) cyber-attackers who use the doctor's code to make false passes
", but rarely "
a doctor who begins to cash in,
”commented at the time of the arrest a police source from Val-de-Marne to AFP.
Doctor, bartender and lover of "
pretty girls
"
According to elements gathered by
Le Parisien
, the man displays a profile to say the least eccentric, having a bar in Paris in addition to his medical activities. "
He was at the same time very appreciated by the inhabitants, for whom he established quick and good diagnoses, but he also had a sulphurous reputation
", testifies an acquaintance: "
we often saw him at the café with lots of pretty girls and some ensured that 'you could buy illicit substances on the spot
'. "
The investigation was able to confirm that the general practitioner did not hesitate to consume cocaine in his office
", also indicates a source after the
Parisian
.
In July, investigators from the Territorial Security of Val-de-Marne were alerted to the existence of a Snapchat account offering fake PCR tests and fake health passes.
Their investigations “
showed that the patients never came to the office
”.
Clients would not be particularly opposed to vaccination.
It is "
the summer period
" which would have motivated their fraudulent purchases: "
Some countries demanded a complete vaccination cycle and they paid exorbitant prices to go on vacation
", had advanced the police source.
Investigators also suspect the doctor of Social Security fraud.
At least three departments - Seine-Saint-Denis, Paris and Val-de-Marne - would be victims.
