For people without papers, finding accommodation in the Paris region is a real headache.
It is on this sad observation that a network of real crooks and fake real estate agents has managed, by exploiting this difficult situation, to collect hundreds of thousands of euros.
Four men, aged 40 to 45, were indicted Thursday, February 11, in Troyes (Aube), for fraud.
Two of them were imprisoned.
This quartet is the final link in a chain that has been traced for more than a year and a half by investigators from the mobile zonal search brigade of the border police (PAF) in Metz (Moselle).
It was in September 2019 at Roissy airport (Val-d'Oise) that this sprawling investigation began, when customs officers got their hands on a package containing two fake passports and two Senegalese identity cards.
The packet is destined for an address in Troyes and the investigators of the “sectors” group set out on the trail of this network.
They identify the recipient and monitor the activities of Beninese crooks specializing in scamming the unemployed on Facebook.
Rents ranging from 500 to 1000 euros
This first lead will guide them towards another group of sourfins of Benin, Senegalese and Ivorian origin who helped the first to find accommodation.
“These men, who have been living in France for a long time, take advantage of the plight of members of the diaspora, often without papers, who live in the Paris region.
They put them in touch with other Africans who sublet apartments or rooms to them for rents that can range from 500 to 1000 euros, ”says an investigator.
False real estate agents collect in passing a commission of one month's rent and also provide false payslips, employer certificates and various receipts to help reassure landlords.
PAF police officers tapped the network and carried out physical surveillance.
They discovered that since the start of 2019, at least 150 people have been able to benefit from this system.
But they believe that "the number of beneficiaries is much greater because these practices have persisted for years".
Arrested in Seine-Saint-Denis, in Yvelines ...
Thirty owners of housing were heard and explained that they had accepted this offer to find tenants.
Investigators also discovered that this team scoured shopping malls to contract loans with false documents.
The idea is to cash the money before it disappears without ever repaying.
On November 17, 2020, the police led a first wave of arrests in the Paris region and in the provinces.
Seven men are brought before a judge in Troyes and five are remanded in custody.
Investigations are continuing and four other suspects were arrested last Monday in Bourget (Seine-Saint-Denis), in Mureaux (Yvelines), in Rouen (Seine-Maritime) and in Paris (15th).
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During their hearings, the eleven people questioned confessed while trying to minimize their involvement.
Overall, they claim that they have only done a favor by connecting landlords with people in need of shelter.
200 unemployed people cheated on Facebook
It is by investigating this case that the investigators finally went back to that of the fake real estate agents.
Other scam professionals plucking the weaker ones.
Seven men, aged 20 to 30, were indicted in October 2020 in Troyes (Aube) and six of them were imprisoned.
They are suspected of having, since the start of 2019, defrauded more than 200 unemployed people via the social network Facebook.
These criminals of Benin origin were arrested in Villejuif (Val-de-Marne), Montereau-Fault-Yonne (Seine-et-Marne), Reims (Marne) and Troyes by investigators from the border police.
They had specialized in the enveloping scam.
The method is simple: they opened accounts on Facebook, offering the unemployed to earn money by putting letters in envelopes.
But, to start working, the victim had to receive a machine dedicated to direct mail.
The bogus employer then sends his future employee a stolen check supposed to cover his purchase… before asking him to reimburse part of the sum, around 150 euros.
The victim cashed the check on his bank account and made a transfer to the scammer on a PSC account (payment card without bank account), opened in a tobacco shop.
The temporary damage is around 30,000 euros for victims, already fragile, who often suffer a banking ban after cashing a fraudulent check.
