Calay News
The Border Police (PAF) at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris has dismantled a clandestine immigration network from sub-Saharan Africa that used legitimate French passports.
The members of the network, including a Malian national and six other people also of Malian origin, were brought before the court on Thursday evening, May 11. They are accused of smuggling illegal immigrants into France using genuine passports from the European country, as the PAF confirmed to RFI.
It all started in November 2022, during a simple identity check at Roissy. A passenger from Mali presented an authentic French passport, but one that did not belong to him.
In police custody, the man declared that he had paid around 7,000 euros to travel from Bamako to Paris with a genuine identity document. It was then that PAF agents discovered the existence of a network that sent genuine passports by mail to customers residing in Mali, Ivory Coast, or Cameroon.
The network had between 150 and 200 accomplices who received 1,500 euros. These accomplices were French citizens who lent their own identity documents or presented a false declaration of loss to obtain a second passport. According to the PAF, this business had been established for one or two years, and it is estimated that around 250 people have illegally entered France using this method.
After several months of investigation, police arrested the members of the network on Tuesday in the Paris region. They include the leader, a repeat Malian national, and the ages of those arrested range from 24 to 55.
Although significant progress has been made, the investigators’ work is not yet complete, as they must arrest those who lent their passports. In addition, it is estimated that between 150 and 200 accomplices received payments of 1,500 euros. It will be difficult to track down those who illegally entered France using the forged passports.
