It all starts with a handful of suspicious files. Last January, investigators from the National Service for the Fight against Fraud at Stakes (SNLFE) tickled on a series of RSA requests received by the Essonne family allowance fund (CAF). All the documents were sent, in hard copy, by European nationals from Eastern countries. All justify their residence rights with the same address in France, and all indicate paid employment with the same company. This is enough to arouse the interest of the inspectors of this specialized service, created in 2021 within the National Family Allowance Fund (Cnaf), to specifically investigate the most complex and massive benefit fraud. By cross-checking the information of the various users concerned, they discover that 75 different recipients have made the same request, by communicating falsified salary slips and employment contracts. “It was a massive fraud, which amounts to several thousand euros. Fortunately, we arrived in time to block the payment of aid on 30 of these files, and we directly stopped the transfers on the others”, says Pascal Louillet, specialized national controller of the SNLFE and referent on the theme of bogus employees in France.
At the rate of “approximately 1,000 euros in monthly allowances” unduly paid into the account of each of these users, this type of scam can quickly reach impressive amounts: last May, SNLFE investigators thus detected a similar fraud out of 435 files in the Val-de-Marne, for a loss of more than 8.6 million euros. “In recent years, the profile of fraudsters has changed: we are no longer simply talking about recipients who tamper with their documents in order to obtain more aid, but rather gangs or highly organized individuals, sophisticated tools, and of clever editing”, regrets Agnès Basso-Fattori, Deputy Managing Director at the head of the CAF network. The amount of these frauds can thus reach sums 10 times greater than those of conventional scams, in “a real logic of looting the system”, she summarizes.
In 2022 alone, the 30 specialized agents of the SNLFE were thus responsible for more than 14,000 checks. These former gendarmes, police officers, CAF controllers or bank compliance officers have all undergone specific training allowing them to quickly detect fraudulent files, in particular through the use of specific computer portals and information cross-checking techniques. In detail, they are behind the identification of 600 cases of false professional activity last year, 3,000 cases of breach of bank details (3 million euros of fraud avoided) and 7,800 checks relating to the condition of residence of RSA recipients – which made it possible to detect 69.4 million euros of undue payments (these allowances received by recipients when they should not have been), including 58% were fraudulent.
“They replaced my bank details with theirs”
“The purpose of our service is not only to detect these fraudsters, but also to understand their techniques, which evolve very quickly as their networks improve”, explains Pascal Louillet. In addition to the classic scams on bank details via mechanisms of phishing more and more credible – these false emails sent to users with the aim of recovering their identifiers and passwords – or the fraud of false activity, the scammers are now settling on social networks. They attract unscrupulous or slightly naive recipients, interested in a few euros of additional aid. “There are thus videos in which they advise users to make false declarations to the CAF, by modifying their status or their place of accommodation, for example, in order to obtain higher allowances”, decrypts Agnès Basso- fattori. Once the amount of aid has been increased, scammers and recipients share the gains for several thousand euros. “In 2022, we worked on more than 3,800 files of this type, for 6.7 million euros in damage”, underlines the Cnaf.
In the majority of cases, users nevertheless remain the first victims of these scams. For several months, Najat has refused to complete any administrative file on the Internet on her own. “Since I got hacked, I’m wary. I no longer trust the administration sites,” breathes this mother. In April 2021, the forty-year-old was surprised not to see her 981 euros in allowance for disabled adults (AAH) appear on her bank account. By calling CAF, she learns that her aid has been paid, but that her account has certainly been hacked. “The fraudsters had, I don’t know how, managed to find my identifiers and my password, and replaced my RIB with theirs,” she says. A well-known process by Agnès Basso-Fattori, which is not limited to Najat’s account. “Hundreds of emails imitating our graphic charter can, for example, be sent at the same time, and give rise to hacks if users respond to them,” she laments. By scrupulously studying the modus operandi of scammers, and relying on reports from local CAFs, the SNLFE would however have managed to detect “80% of fraud of this type”, avoiding more than 2,600 undue payments in 2022.
A penal strategy “to be reinforced”
But, once the scam has been observed, the payments avoided and the beneficiaries reimbursed, what happens to the fraudsters? “In 2022, 22.8 million euros in fines or penalties were applied following the filing of complaints, in addition to the restitution of sums paid in excess”, answers Agnès Basso-Fattori. If a complaint is systematically lodged by the local CAF with the police, some scammers are however difficult to identify. “They are very volatile, some networks operate from abroad and make us dependent on international laws… The logic of criminal strategy on the subject still needs to be strengthened,” said the director of the CAF network.
The national plan to fight against social fraud announced by the government on May 30 aims precisely to strengthen the methods of action of the CAF, in particular by giving them access to more data. “Since this year, SNLFE controllers have also been given police powers as part of their checks, and coordinated actions with the police and the national gendarmerie have been reinforced”, specifies Agnès Basso-Fattori. Over the next two years, the Cnaf also assures L’Express that the staff of this service will be “increased significantly”.