Geneva: criminal procedure against a relocation company

“Love of figure”. On his CV, when he still sold carpets, Labid* does not hide his main motivation. At the head of a relocation agency, this Algerian in forty years is known as the white wolf by people in illegal situations in search of apartments in Geneva. However, on the web, he knows how to be discreet. Its website is at half mast, the phone number that is displayed does not work and its desktop offices are often empty. Whatever, business seems flourishing.

Forty apartments in five years

According to our investigation, his company had in management at least forty apartments in Geneva between 2020 and today. Created in July 2017, it’s at Beginning of the covid that society is starting to be talked about. She takes advantage of the pandemic to offer her services via her Facebook page in March 2020. As a containment, she will submit a dozen files from her customers to the Center management. Problem: most of the people whose files have been submitted are not aware of these procedures. The Régie quickly discovers that the apartments are sudden of other people without the knowledge of the registered tenants, but especially that the rents are not paid.

The stratagem is always the same: using the solvency files of some of its customers, the company obtains several leases of apartments by file. Using the signature of their initial customers, she then sublets, to people without residence permits or prosecution, additional apartments, most of the time without warning customers whose identity it has used to obtain leases.

In 2022, the center management denounced it to the police and encourages people whose identity was usurped to do the same. A year later, in April 2023, an instruction against Labid and his company was opened by the public prosecutor, who did not wish to speak more.

Ahmed’s misadventures

In parallel, several customers of the relocation company complain of similar situations. This is the case with Ahmed*. Freshly landed in Geneva, this taxi driver accepts an eighty-piece attic proposed by message by Labid. But once arrived on site, he notes that the apartment does not correspond to the description. Dirty and already busy, it’s a two and a half-pieces. Taken short, Ahmed* is forced to accept temporary accommodation in Meyrin before being relocated to Thônex a few weeks later. Six months later, an unpaid bill for Say will make him discover the pot with roses.

After several exchanges, he discovered tenant without his knowledge with the Régie Pilet & Renaud From the apartment briefly occupied for a few weeks in Meyrin. When he goes there, an employee of the Régie asked him for her identity card. Embarrassed, she returns to him a few minutes later: her signature does not correspond to that used to sign the lease.

Refusing to give him more details, she enjoins him to file a complaint. Questioned on this subject, the Pilet & Renaud Régie replied “that indeed the file concerning this rental has disappeared, which is very strange”. Ahmed wants to be clear and files a complaint with the public prosecutor.

He then discovered that an additional apartment was rented in his name with the Régie Grange This time. But the rents are not paid, the management proceeds to a request for evacuation. This evacuation will be carried out in the absence of Ahmed and the Régie will eventually bury the case. Contacted, the manager in charge of this file refused to answer us.

Banoted between three apartments in six months

Now owner of his own apartment hunter company, Yana* has long collaborated with Labid. Describing herself as a simple “business bringing”, she admits to having brought her several customers and remembers a frantic period for her director, who was “permanently on the phone”. According to her, Labid would have “contacts in several goals and relations with owners who allow her to find new apartments each time”.

Labid seems to have developed a real network for its business and an impressive adaptability. His last find: to propose apartments to the sublet while the main lease is terminated, waiting for an evacuation to be pronounced. This is what will happen to a family of Balkans who will pay more than 6000 francs to his company through Yana and will be tossed between three apartments in the space of six months.

Systematically, the leases of the apartments they sublet are terminated and the family must be relocated urgently. With each change of apartment, the company requests a new deposit of one month of rent and a new guarantee. This situation is repeated until their arrival in sublet in Wendt avenue.

Presenting himself as a victim

This apartment managed by the Régie Moser was one of the seven sudden by Labid or by one of his contacts within the Régie. If the identities varied during each rental request, the number used was always the same: that of Labid. Having noticed the ploy, the Régie has since filed a complaint at the beginning of last year, but did not wish to speak on the case.

Contacted several times, Labid ends up agreeing to meet us in a bakery in Plainpalais. Hair losses back, smile on his lips, he comes accompanied by his brother. According to him, unpaid rents at the Moser Régie are the responsibility of the sub-tenant who refused to pay. But verification made, the latter would have himself collected this money, delivering in the passage of receipts for at least 6000 francs of rents. First presenting himself as a victim who wanted to help people in need, he ended up refusing to answer our questions.

One thing is certain, this hunter of apartments is not lacking in liquidity. CoordinatorAssociation for the safeguarding of the accommodation for precarious people (ASLPP)Rui Branda has often dealt with this relocation company. He remembers a particular meeting with his director. “I came to ask him for the surety he had asked a family of undocumented migrants. While I was approaching, one of these henchmen came to me with a threatening air, ”he says. After a brief exchange, Labid would have released a bundle of tickets without sickening to give it the equivalent of the bond paid, two tickets of 1000 francs, before leaving quietly in the opposite direction.

A well -oiled machine

During our investigation we discovered that this company obtained apartments from at least eight different agencies in Geneva. However, the processes of lease and keys awarding in agencies like Pilet & Renaud or Grange are notoriously strict.

How could these have ignored that the signatures provided by Labid were not those of the tenants? “We have put alerts in place so that these people can never rent apartments with us again,” said the manager of one of the agencies concerned. Before adding that these cases were mentioned during meetings between professionals in the sector in order to alert all the agencies. “But when we put our research in common, we discovered that they regularly used seven names, five telephone numbers and three different e-mail addresses, which complicates our controls,” she explains.

Having become too visible, Labid would have taken a little distance. At the house of Real estate counterit was his brother who rented an apartment, today in evacuation procedure.

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