Par
Thomas Martin
Published on
Nov 1, 2024 at 9:03 a.m.
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The general public prosecutor's office of the Rennes Court of Appeal requested, Wednesday October 30, 2024, the seizure of an apartment located route des Fusillés de la Résistance, in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine), belonging to the “head” of a network of fake plumbers-locksmiths sentenced to four years in prison.
“An uberization of plumbing by people without a diploma”
There were six of them before the criminal court of Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Atlantique) to answer for acts of organized gang fraud in a case where “forty-eight complaints” had been recorded, including “ten to fifteen” in Loire-Atlantique , the others coming from all over Île-de-France and the entire French territory.
The role of Djamel D. – the head of the network who had received the heaviest sentence – was in fact to centralize the repair requests arriving from all over France to then “dispatch” them to his various “collaborators” carrying out for them apart from the interventions. A form [d’]uberization of plumbing” by “people without diplomas”, summarized the lawyer of one of the victims of this case, a 61-year-old woman who was billed “3,600 euros” for “a simple leak” including the intervention was actually worth “264 euros”.
This 48-year-old man therefore redistributed the money coming to each person: in total, 4.8 million euros would have passed through his accounts, according to the accusation, of which “1.2 million” were “actually received by him. The amount of turnover reconstructed by investigators would amount to more than 7.2 million euros. Taxes and the URSAAF had never seen the color of these astronomical amounts.
Significant sums paid to Google Ads
The investigation also established that Djamel D. had paid “substantial sums” to Google Ads so that the plumbing and locksmith companies he managed could be well “referenced” and thus appear at the top search results and to benefit from “major advertising”. In total, he would have paid “1.7 million euros” to the multinational.
He was therefore sentenced to four years in prison and five years banned from running a business. He did not appeal the decision, which therefore became final. This resident of Suresnes also had his BMW worth 48,000 euros confiscated and all of his bank accounts, with the exception of two life insurance policies and his apartment valued at 510,000 euros which he had been restored by the first judges.
But the Saint-Nazaire public prosecutor's office considered that these seizures were not sufficient and appealed the judgment, concerning him, only on this point: this Wednesday, October 30, 2024, the general advocate therefore requested the confiscation of his apartment and “two life insurance policies” for a total amount of more than 180,000 euros.
The detainee had refused to be removed for the hearing: this Wednesday, his lawyer for her part recalled that the apartment had been purchased “following the resale of a previous property acquired in 2006” and that the life insurance had been “opened more than twenty years ago”. Since then, there has been no injection of additional “funds”.
In theory, however, the penal code allows the seizure of these goods, even though they are “neither the object, nor the product, nor the instrument of the offense”. But these seizures must nevertheless be assessed with regard to the “principle of proportionality” taking into account “his property rights” and “respect for his private and family life”, recalled his lawyer.
In this case, “the apartment constitutes the couple's only residence”, argued Me Pauline Kerloegan, where “his wife” – also convicted alongside him in this case – and their two minor children also live. And Djamel D. – who “worked all his life” “never hid funds” since “all his accounts were in France”. The court will make its decision in six weeks.
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