He evokes “a height” with a rather humorous tone, but the subject certainly does not make him laugh. Lieutenant Sébastien Possemé, head of the digital brigade of the gendarmerie, based in Rennes, had the unpleasant surprise of discovering a rather special message in his personal mailbox. Like millions of French people, he received a fake summons email for “child pornography, pedophilia” or even “sex trafficking (sic)”. Except that it is signed with his own name.
The soldier shared this false charge notice on his Twitter account to raise awareness, once again, of this attempted scam. This aims – in particular – to ask victims for money in exchange for their alleged silence from hackers who usurp the identity of gendarmes and police officers, pretending that they have (non-existent) evidence.
“I knew that my name was being used because I have received, for months, nearly a hundred requests from potential victims who thought this email was authentic”, explains the officer who has been contacted up to ten times. per week. Letters, emails, phone calls, social networks… He wanted to respond and warn all these potential victims that it was a scam. Each time, he explains to people the precautionary measures to take and what to do in the face of this scam attempt.
He claims to have wanted to quickly do everything possible to reassure these worried people, often the elderly. “We cannot remain insensitive to these situations. Letting them wonder about their fate when they had nothing to be ashamed of seemed inconceivable to me”, repeats Lieutenant Possemé. Indeed, as Le Parisien revealed last February, at least three people ended their lives after receiving this email, two others attempted suicide. At least 120 complaints had been identified for a provisional damage of 1.1 million euros.
When Interpol Kinshasa is interested in the gendarme of Rennes
“It bothers me a lot to be associated with a system that affects victims, I read their fear in the emails…”, continues the fifty-year-old, disturbed by their distress. Other solicitations, in a humorous tone, admitted to the lieutenant that he was consuming pornographic content, going so far as to list the sites consulted, but denying any offence. In January, this attempted scam even offered an incredible episode to the soldier.
“There was a request for assistance from the Interpol Kinshasa (Congo) agency, which asked Interpol France to find out if I existed. My service was seized to verify the facts of which I was accused, ”says the gendarme. New proof of the now international scale of this scam. Sébastien Possemé filed a complaint for identity theft and usurpation of quality.
According to Jean-Jacques Latour, expertise manager at Cybermalveillance, this email is still at the top of the most popular online scams. “Our prevention publication continues to be consulted by more than 2,000 people every day,” explains this expert from the national assistance system for victims of online attacks.
At its peak, it could be read by about 4,000 people daily. This week, it is even the bar of 700,000 clicks from people looking for information on this scam which should even be crossed.