In addition to those from SDIS 30, other cards were stolen from a decoration company and a foster home based in Nîmes. The damage is estimated at more than 30,000 euros.
This Friday, November 15, an uncle and his niece were presented for immediate appearance before the Nîmes judicial court. Between July and November 2024, they are accused of having stolen and fraudulently used fuel cards from the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (SDIS) of Gard but also from the Séguret decoration company and from a nursing home. reception, both based in Nîmes. The total damage amounts to more than 30,000 euros of gasoline.
Cards “rented” to several people
A scheme which consisted of recovering these cards and using them, either for personal consumption or by renting them to other people. “The person stocked up and they just had to give me half the amount in cash,” specifies the uncle. Samples were thus recorded in Gard, but also in Hérault, in Seine-et-Marne, where the latter's daughter lives, and in the Rhône region, where his niece lives. If no prosecution concerns her daughter, the niece, aged 42, is also present in the defendant's box for having benefited from these “rentals”. “It was exceptional. He wasn't very intelligent, I admit, but I was having great difficulties at work and I often spoke to him about my financial problems. It was to help me”she explains.
“I can’t tell you who it is, I’m threatened”
A version confirmed by his uncle. On the other hand, regarding the origin of these cards, the latter denies having stolen them. “But I can’t tell you who it is, I’m threatened”he told the court. And when the SDIS 30 lawyer questions him about the possibility that this supposed person is a firefighter, the defendant's response is unequivocal: “As I told the gendarmes, he’s a officer”he assures, while adding that he would have met him when he worked within the SDIS, a few years ago. Concerning the two other cards stolen from the decoration company and the foster home, the cards would have, this time, been given “by a young person from the ZUP in a gas station”he adds.
An accomplice within the SDIS?
A point which, if surprising, is not completely dismissed by the prosecutor, Frédéric Kocher, in particular concerning the theft of cards within the SDIS. Because according to the SDIS representative present during the hearing, each gas card is assigned to a specific vehicle. And of the four stolen cards, some were put back in these same vehicles. “It seems tricky to steal cards and then return them without everyone knowing. I think there may be complicity, which could possibly be within the firefighters”he declares.
Sentences between eighteen months and two years in prison
An argument which, for the niece's lawyer, Me Victoria Morgante, clearly shows that this case is incomplete. “We learned that the main person concerned, the instigator, would be part of the SDIS. Which means that there will surely be a part 2 in this file”she emphasizes. And his colleague, Me Romain Fugier, counsel of the uncle, to outbid: “My client could not get up one morning knowing that there were these cards in these cars, with the codes written on them. You must release him for the thefts.”he pleads. A request for acquittal approved by the court, which reclassifies the charges of prevention as concealment of theft. The uncle was sentenced to two years in prison with a committal warrant. Her niece was sentenced to twelve months in prison with a simple suspended sentence.
