It was a banal thoughtlessness that caused their downfall. One day in 2019, municipal police officers from Moissy-Cramayel (Seine-et-Marne) found an envelope in the street, containing eight identity cards, five of which bore the same photo! They give these fake cards to their colleagues at the Melun Val de Seine urban police station. Then began long and complex investigations, entrusted to the general investigation unit of Urban Security.
The person who appears five times on the identity cards is finally identified. He is a 31-year-old man, residing in Savigny-sur-Orge (Essonne). He is not unknown since he has no less than 43 mentions in the processing of criminal records (TAJ). The police also manage to put names on the other three photos. There is the concubine of the inhabitant of Savigny, a 28-year-old woman, a 22-year-old man from Savigny-le-Temple (Seine-et-Marne) and a 38-year-old resident of Dourdan (Essonne). .
Eight victims identified in the Paris region
The latter is a temporary worker employed by the Postal Bank. The investigations make it possible to discover what these false identity cards were used for, as well as the mechanism of the scam. The temporary worker identifies customer accounts, most of the time rather old and well stocked. He then provides their identity to the rest of the team who takes care of adding their photos to the fake cards. With the documents, they then open accounts at the Postal Bank and transfer sums from the accounts of real customers to their own.
A total of eight victims, six men and two women aged between 40 and 88, have been identified. Three are in Noisy-le-Grand (Seine-Saint-Denis), two in Créteil (Val-de-Marne), one in Athis-Mons (Essonne) and two in the 5th and 13th arrondissements. They had lodged a complaint each on their side everywhere in the Paris region. The total amount of their damage amounts to 123,000 euros. La Banque Postale collaborated with the police to unmask who the dishonest employee was. An internal investigation had been carried out, making it possible to identify the suspicious maneuver of the temporary worker, who consulted accounts when he had no reason to do so.
Wednesday, at six o’clock in the morning, the police proceeded to the arrest of the quartet. Placed in police custody, they denied the facts en bloc and were released on Thursday evening. They will still have to explain themselves later in court since they will be tried next May at the correctional court of Evry (Essonne) for fraud in an organized gang.