It’s really bad luck for Rachid! The defendant in the previous case did not imagine this surge of bad karma. Placed under telephone surveillance in the context of aid to migrants, investigators also discovered trafficking in driving licenses between Lorraine and Melun. Rachid plays his role there. When it doesn’t work… The bottom line is always this damn trickle-down theory: providing a few slightly murky services for hard cash.
Four defendants face the court, but two of them are the conductors of this well-oiled ballet. Rachid in Metz and Francine in Melun. It is in his kebab shop that our man recruits driving license candidates. A sesame that many cannot achieve despite their efforts and tenacity. Damn language barrier that weighs you down every time. Never mind Rachid works miracles, things work with him. In any case for the code, he sends his clients to a Metz driving school, always the same, and the lucky ones almost always achieve their goals. “I was just an intermediary,” he defends himself straight away.
“For easy money, the lure of gain. I could buy kibble for the dog”
The trick is President Gautier Archambaud who talks about it best. “How can a foreign person obtain a code without speaking French and without passing it? Someone else passes it for him,” he explains. A lookalike puppet will do. And it will cost the candidate 2,000, 3,000, 3,500 euros, or even more, the sums flutter with the wind, Rachid hands over the code certificates, not seen, not taken. The listening is overwhelming and it smells like a scorch for Rachid who is establishing his mamaillou character. He may explain that he has expenses, that in reality he only earns 200, 300 euros, or nothing, the damage is done.
Next to him, Francine isn’t doing much either. In Melun, she is the one who takes care of permits when the candidate cannot obtain one in Metz. At the time she was a driving school manager. “How is it that people who fail five or six times in Metz succeed in one go in Melun? », the president is surprised. “I was training them an hour or two before. In Melun, the route is quite easy,” answers Francine. She will receive 1,000 euros each time, obviously undeclared. In these times, it’s scary… She fiercely denies any corruption on the part of an inspector. What was stopping him? “My honesty, here. » We’re left with two rounds of flan. And why indulge in this little fraudulent game? “Easy money, the lure of profit. I could buy kibble for the dog,” replies the sixty-year-old with breathtaking confidence.
The fact remains that the four defendants are presented for organized gang fraud. And there, things get stuck with the lawyers. “It’s a communitarian network and nothing else,” Mr. Zouaoui corrects, when his colleague Mr. Duchet says: “Look at them, these people have nickel-plated feet. They are too stupid to create a network, an organized gang,” he asserts. Here’s one who doesn’t mince his words.
Deliberated on January 14, 2025.
