behind the fictitious garages, thousands of fraudsters and a failing state

In the middle of July, a thriving automobile sales company took up residence in a small suburban town in Val-d'Oise. After only a few days of existence, it acquired an impressive fleet of more than 5,000 vehicles. A dozen Porsches, more than 200 Audis, two Harley-Davidsons, six limousines, and even two Scania heavy goods vehicles… However, this garage has neither premises nor employees. Not even a mailbox in the small five-story residential building where he lives. The name of its manager does not refer to any real identity. It is, in short, nothing more than a shell company which was used as a front name to register thousands of vehicles.

Stories like this are well known to law enforcement, who regularly dismantle these “fictitious garages”, which vehicle owners use to escape fines and withdrawals of license points, circumvent ecological penalties, or even launder money. a stolen machine before reselling it. An investigation of Monde reveals today that a gaping loophole in French legislation has encouraged these frauds, which have become massive and systematic, for almost eight years. The French registration system is undermined by thousands of fraudsters who, every year, carry out tens of thousands of fictitious operations.

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