Several people suspected of involvement in part-time job fraud in France valued at tens of millions of shekels and money laundering using cryptocurrencies were arrested in Israel on Monday, local police said.

As part of an investigation conducted in cooperation with the French police and Europol, the Israeli police arrested “three main suspects” and “several others”, detained for questioning.

The investigation, which relates to suspicions of “laundering tens of millions of shekels using complex mechanisms” of cryptocurrencies, focuses on a “large-scale fraud against the French Treasury” carried out from Israel, according to the police, which did not detailed the details. identity of the suspects.

A source close to the case indicated that it was a massive fraud in partial unemployment during the Covid-19 pandemic in France, a complex case with multiple ramifications instructed in Paris at the National Court in charge of the fight against organized crime ( Junalco).

A total loss of around 11 million euros

In November 2020, the Paris prosecutor’s office estimated the part-time job fraud at €182 million, of which only €54 million had been embezzled, the rest blocked before payment. The investigation, entrusted since 2020 to the gendarmes of the Toulouse investigation section and the Central Office against illegal work (OCLTI), has made it possible to bring out the modus operandi of the thieves.

The latter, taking advantage of the fact that the French government extended, from the confinement and to compensate for the consequent cessation of activity, the possibility of resorting to the reduction of working hours and compensating employees, the fraudsters usurped the company name and the identification number of existing companies to request payment of compensation.

In June 2021, a man living in the Paris region was arrested on suspicion of belonging to an Israel-based criminal organization at the origin of more than 7,000 false claims for partial unemployment compensation for total damage to the state of around of 11 million euros.

The investigators had discovered “accounts opened in France, and rebound accounts opened afterwards that allow the money to pass quickly” to reintegrate it into the legal economy.

In a statement, the Israeli police denounced a “methodical” device to launder money, part of which came “from crimes committed abroad”, “using digital currencies on various platforms in order to hide the identity of the owners of the money” .