Personal Training Account (CPF) fraud rose sharply in Tracfin activity last year, Bercy’s financial intelligence unit revealed in its annual report on Wednesday, also showing the persistence of aid fraud related to Covid-19. .
Fraud in training schemes represented “clearly a very important part” in 2021, says its director Guillaume Valette-Valla, noting that the phenomenon was confirmed in the first six months of this year.
empty shells
The Personal Training Account (CPF), which has existed since January 1, 2019, allows any active person to acquire training rights in euros and no longer in hours, through an online platform. It is the Caisse des dépôts (CDC) that directly pays training companies, which are sometimes empty shells seeking to divert public money.
Empty shells were swarming in 2021: Suspicious transaction reports sent to Tracfin — alerts sent by professionals like the CDC or banks that suspect abuse — skyrocketed to 116 versus just 10 in 2020. That represents 43.2 million suspected fraud euros compared to 7.8 million euros. a year earlier, he underlined the Bercy cell in his report. At the same time, fraud methods have evolved, observes Guillaume Valette-Valla. In 2020, scam attempts emerged with “classic beneficiary identity theft patterns,” he recalls.
covid aid fraud
However, since then, the networks have clearly professionalized and now include transnational criminal organisations, particularly outside the European Union, following the model of older frauds such as those in the carbon market. Despite its very rapid development, CPF fraud is far from the only public aid scheme to fall victim to fraud, and Tracfin sees a persistence of emergency aid scams related to the Covid-19 crisis.
The fraud to the partial unemployment subsidy, to the solidarity fund and to the loans guaranteed by the State supposed an economic bet of more than 16 million euros. Tracfin, which is also dedicated to tracking the assets of Russian oligarchs in the context of European sanctions against Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine, calculates the financial and non-financial assets frozen in France since the beginning of the conflict.
Source: BFM TV
