The dismantling of a vast fraud network in Paris that included corrupt civil servants

The French police arrested a group of eight people, including two working in the province, on suspicion of involvement in large-scale forgery operations in France, by providing hundreds of illegal immigrants with forged identity papers that were issued in cooperation with corrupt government employees working in a center Governorate.

For a full year, a team of specialized investigators in Paris continued to track down the suspects. After much investigation, the team was able to discover the network’s members, and they arrested seven men and a woman, between the ages of 21 and 55. They were charged with “using forgery of papers”, “falsifying administrative documents”, “assisting the illegal entry of foreigners and facilitating their stay in France”.

According to the police, the group was able, thanks to its advanced special means, to issue fake identities not only for French papers, but also for other European countries, including: Czechia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Croatia, Italy and Poland.

The defendants were charging an amount of about 15,000 euros (to be paid in cash only) from each person whose status is irregular, asking them to obtain forged papers authorizing him to reside in France. Other forged documents are made with a high degree of accuracy that is rarely seen in France.

Investigations revealed that there was another group in Turkey that was participating in the forgery operations in its early stages and then sending the fake documents back to France via simple postal parcels.

The police found in the possession of the group modern laser printers, computers, ink cartridges, blank plastic cards, and fake identities in large numbers, and more than 110,000 euros in cash were found in the homes of the members of the group, which were searched by the security services.

There is no doubt that the presence of corrupt elements in any security apparatus, especially with regard to falsifying identity papers, constitutes a serious challenge that adds a burden to the French authorities, which have been suffering for many years from terrorism, human trafficking and the crisis of illegal immigrants.