For Julien (his first name has been changed), it all started in the summer of 2018. “I am on vacation and I receive a call from a police officer who tells me that several vehicles registered in my name have committed serious crimes, such as robberytells this sales executive based in the Paris region. However, at the time, I didn't even have a car, I drove a scooter. » The rest of his story resembles in many ways the nightmare that all victims of identity theft describe. Except that, in his case, a large part of the responsibility lies with the State.
Read our survey | Article reserved for our subscribers Registration scandal: behind the fictitious garages, thousands of fraudsters and a failing state
Read later
If Julien found himself suspected by the police, surrounded by the tax authorities, Urssaf, and ordered, overnight, to pay hundreds of thousands of euros in traffic fines, it is because of the gaping loopholes of the vehicle registration system (SIV), a public register whose semi-privatization has opened the way to massive fraud.
Let's go back to spring 2018. At that time, Julien still didn't know it, but someone had just created a company with his name for the “purchase and sale of used vehicles” in Roubaix (North), several hundred kilometers away. from his home. In the weeks that followed, dozens of vehicles were registered every day in the name of his company, which soon had a fleet of more than 300 cars, without a single red light coming on in the prefectures.
Debt of more than 300,000 euros
Speeding, inconvenient parking, impounding, accidents, participation in burglaries in Belgium… Each time one of the cars commits an offense, the registration refers to Julien, who must take responsibility. The young man is ordered by insurance companies to reimburse the damage caused by “his” vehicles on the road. The fines accumulate until they form a debt of more than 300,000 euros with the Public Treasury, which attempts to take his salary directly from his employer and seize his bank accounts. “Fortunately, the requests were so huge that my bank said no, because there was not enough money in my account”says Julien.
You have 61.19% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
