Alleged Ringleader Arrested in Paris Airport Taxi Scam Investigation

It all started from an anonymous tip-off, collected in July, according to which a certain Anass E., a repeat offender of Moroccan origin who has been operating at Roissy since 2017, "would have started as early as March 2022 to spy daily on the Boers, the police officers of the passenger transport control unit". This 32-year-old lookout now scrutinized the comings and goings of the Boers every day, between 7:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. His accomplices Aurelian Z., a 45-year-old Romanian homeless person and Aboubaker G., aged 21, were permanently stationed in front of the Boers’ premises to monitor their movements and their movements. They even sometimes sent photos of the police officers they were monitoring and the license plates of their unmarked and personal police cars. These lookouts even went so far as to carry out real surveillance operations within the airport. "The police officers were monitored, threatened and sometimes followed to their homes. Some had their car tires punctured," says a source close to the case.

These lookouts communicated this information to the drivers of illegal taxis via four WhatsApp or Telegram groups in exchange for 100 and 140 euros per week: "The later the payment, the more expensive the contribution." Each discussion group had between 20 and 50 clients. The network’s earnings are estimated between 170,000 and 300,000 euros since March 2022. This information allowed the illegal taxi drivers to scam tourists by making them pay more for their trip. Among the victims, a South Korean family who paid 950 euros for a Roissy-Paris trip, reports Le Parisien.

These three men will be arrested in Moissy-Cramayel (Seine-et-Marne), Roissy-en-France (Val-d’Oise) and Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis) by the Boers, and placed under judicial supervision on Friday, December 15 for "undeclared work in an organized gang" and "complicity in taking on a client on a public road, without justification of prior reservation by the driver of a paid passenger road transport vehicle", the Bobigny prosecutor’s office said, specifying that the facts they are accused of were committed between March 31, 2022 and December 12, 2023. Still according to the prosecution, the three suspects are no longer allowed to go to the airports of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, Orly and Le Bourget, or to contact each other, until they are tried in March 2024.

Paris is determined to wage a relentless fight against this scourge before the holding of the Olympic Games scheduled from July 26 to August 11 on its territory. "The Paris Police Prefecture is determined to put a stop to these structured networks," says Commissioner Jean-Sébastien Rosadoni, head of the regional road safety division. Under the aegis of the Paris Police Prefecture delegation for the security and safety of airport platforms, all state services are engaged in this virtuous action that we are carrying out."