The system was well established and allowed this Toulousain to comfortably make ends meet.
A 24-year-old man was indicted and referred this Wednesday to the Toulouse prosecutor's office (Haute-Garonne) for having participated in a fraud in the examination of the Highway Code.
For more than a year, this employee of a private examination center in Balma, a town in the Toulouse metropolitan area, received money in exchange for disclosing the correct answers to candidates taking the test.
Since the Macron law passed in 2016, private providers can organize the general theoretical driving license test, once approval has been obtained from the prefecture to become an examination center for the Highway Code.
The sesame validated, the manager of this technical control center based in Balma offered this young man of 24 years a position of examiner, having complete confidence in this employee, already boss of a cleaning company which operated in his premises. .
"As my client was in charge of cleaning in this driving school, the boss asked him if he was interested in monitoring the Highway Code tests, which were held on weekends," explains Ferdinand Djammen-Nzepa, the lawyer for the young man under investigation.
As the sessions progressed, he noticed that some candidates were struggling to validate the test so he began to whisper the answers to them for small tips.
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A record success rate that calls out
From January 1, 2019 to December 19, 2020, the exam sessions are linked and since the arrival of the new recruit, the success rate in the Highway Code explodes, even becoming higher than the national average.
This record success rate calls out to the anti-fraud service, which then carries out an unannounced check at the famous Balma examination center where elements of fraud were quickly observed.
The Toulouse public prosecutor's office charged the gendarmes of the Toulouse Saint-Michel research brigade with the investigation, which quickly identified the unscrupulous examiner behind his boss.
Placed in custody on Tuesday, the Toulousain, who has no mention of his criminal record, admitted the facts to investigators.
"After asking for small tips, it was almost a system that had been set up, with the help of another person, who paid between 500 to 1000 euros per weekend to my client, on condition of not check the identity documents of the candidates present in the examination room every weekend, specifies Me Djammen-Nzepa.
He recognized the facts and justified them with greed and easy money.
He was placed under judicial supervision.
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"Fraud is on the increase"
A trick to make easy money that does not surprise Yann Thomas, president of driving schools at the National Council of Automobile Professionals of Haute-Garonne.
“We warned during the Macron laws that if the examination was liberalized without real control by the State, it was the door open to fraud, he analyzes.
We see that fraud in the Highway Code exam is increasing in several departments and unfortunately we give the exam to people who should not have it and who are then found on the road!
Some dishonest people have figured out that this can be an easy money scheme.
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The amount of the fraud is between 45,000 and 50,000 euros.
The scheme would have allowed between 600 and 800 people to illegally obtain their Highway Code.
To identify the accomplices of the examiner and the candidates who benefited from this system, the Toulouse prosecutor opened a judicial investigation.
