Two French policemen have been arrested and charged in an ‘ingenious scheme’ that assisted hundreds of illegal migrants obtain French residency permits by fraudulently claiming that they came from Eastern Europe.
For around $16,500, illegal migrants were given everything necessary to obtain permits, including “passports, identity cards, driver’s licenses, payslips, tax notices, medical prescriptions, and employment contracts.”
Those involved in the scandal allegedly falsified Eastern European documents as they are easier to reproduce than the French equivalents and because “they attract less attention from the [French] authorities.” Their clients could therefore take advantage of the European Union’s internal freedom of movement policy.
The two policeman and six accomplices were charged with use of forgery in writing, use of forgery in an administrative document, and aid for the irregular entry and residence of foreigners in France.
One source close with knowledge of the investigation told European media, “[f]ake documents were sometimes more real than life, a degree of sophistication rarely seen until then in France.”
