Guwahati: Ten suspected Pakistanis have been detained in the Paris suburbs on suspicion of money laundering, human trafficking, and falsifying documents on Tuesday.
According to allegations in the media, authorities suspect two brothers among the ten detainees of running the network. In June 2020, police were alerted to the network after receiving reports of suspicious shipments with phoney European documents arriving in France via Turkey and Greece.
According to reports, official credentials from countries in the Schengen area, including passports, identity cards, and residence permits, were among the fraudulent documents.
Following this lead, investigators from the OCRGDF (Central Office for the Suppression of Serious Financial Crime) and the Central Office for the Suppression of Irregular Immigration and Employment of Undocumented Foreigners began looking into the presence of illegal workers operating in the Paris region, primarily in the construction sector.
During the investigation, the French police discovered 20 legal construction firms linked to a massive network of “taxi” organisations that were used to divert payments to over 200 bank accounts formed with forged documents.
This network used fraudulent invoices or paperwork to move money to numerous accounts, then withdrew the money out of the legal system by withdrawing huge sums from these bank accounts using ATMs.
However, the money was split between paying illegal Pakistanis working on the building sites and sending the rest to Pakistan.
It may be noted that 157 fake identity documents, Euros 134,000 in cash, four vehicles, including a Maserati, documents related to 180 bank accounts, and the false papers used to open these accounts were recovered during searches at the homes and offices of these ten individuals from the Val-d’Oise and Seine-Saint-Denis’s areas of Paris.
According to reports, at least Euro 28 million was transferred to the bank accounts of various people between 2019 and 2021, and another Euro 13 million was transferred to accounts in the names of front firms.
Furthermore, the investigation has revealed a strong nexus between illegal Pakistani immigration and money laundering.