A massive scam.
Eighteen suspected crooks, suspected of having taken money from at least 62 priests, were arrested in Seine-Maritime on Wednesday and nine of them must be tried on Friday before the Le Havre judicial court, he said. we learned from police sources.
“At the end of a lot of investigative work”, eighteen people, residing in the Le Havre metropolitan area, were arrested and placed in police custody on Wednesday, Le Havre Commissioner Julien Herbaut told AFP.
The events took place between “the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2024”, he recalled.
The crooks presented themselves to priests, located throughout France, as gendarmes, police officers or magistrates.
Under the pretext of a case to be resolved or the threat of a possible scam, they asked their victims to provide them with their bank details and then made bank transfers to the advantage of the network, according to this same source.
430,000 euros
Sixty-two victims have been identified but it is possible that others have not come forward, estimated Julien Herbaut.
Their damage was estimated at an amount greater than 430,000 euros.
Also read: Fake police officers, fake water workers… more and more elderly people victims of theft by trickery
“The mastermind” of the case, who is one of the nine defendants presented Friday afternoon before the criminal court for immediate appearance for “organized gang fraud”, was already incarcerated for similar facts, he explained.
He took over the modus operandi of his father who had set up a similar method of fraud in the 1990s, he stressed.
The other nine arrested, having played a subordinate role, will be summoned to court later, according to the commissioner.