False papers, illegal workers: these OLTIM34 police officers attack illegal immigration networks

Le secteur de la taille des vignes souvent visé. Midi Libre – JEROME MOUILLOT

The office for combating the illegal trafficking of migrants, OLTIM, is expanding regionally and is multiplying cases. Illegal supermarket security guards in Occitanie, illegal campsite cleaners, false papers from Kosovo… Investigators are tackling the networks. Meet these shadowy police officers.

The major criminal network dismantled in December, which was getting rich on the backs of refugees trying to cross the Channel, by selling them €10,000 worth of plastic boats that passed through the port of Sète, has highlighted these services at the forefront of the fight against illegal immigration. In recent weeks, OLTIM34, the armed wing of the central office for combating illegal migrant trafficking, has thus multiplied cases in Occitanie.

Illegal supermarket guards

Like this trial that opens this Monday, January 6 before the Montpellier judicial court. It targets security companies that provided, as subcontractors, surveillance missions in the 17 Aldi brand stores in the South of France, notably Béziers and Montpellier, at the time when the brand bought Leader Price without any service provision or subcontracting contract.

The inspection of an agent from the Colomiers (Hérault) store, who did not have an identity document or professional card, and who gave the first and last name of a Senegalese colleague like him, alerted the police.

The great artistic blur of subcontracting contracts

The investigations made it possible to identify 9 foreigners without a residence permit and a loss for Urssaf of 1.36 million euros. “It was the great artistic blur in the subcontracting contracts” summarizes Philippe, investigation director. “We target the networks, the structured groups, it's a whole organization with the false papers, the landlords, the smugglers” explains Olivier Harguindeguy, head of Sipaf 34 (Interdepartmental Border Police Service of Hérault).

The Office for the Fight against Illegal Trafficking of Migrants: How it Works

OLTIM is a central office for the fight against illicit trafficking of migrants. It is based in Paris and has several branches, including the one in Marseille, to which the OLTIM 34 detachment is attached. The latter works with the judicial courts of Montpellier, Béziers and Mende (Lozère), but also has national jurisdiction.

OLTIM34 reports to SIPAF (border police) within DIPN34 (interdepartmental directorate of the national police). This OLTIM 34 has two groups: an irregular immigration sector group and an undeclared work sector group.

“We have a wine-growing specificity, but we also work on pimping or professions in demand, construction, catering, and of course false papers.”

As in this DHL envelope sent from Kosovo and arrived in Vendargues (Hérault), with Slovenian papers: two identity cards and two driving licenses. All false. “A normal police officer wouldn't see anything, but for the colleague who is an analyst in document fraud, the counterfeiting was obvious” reports Guillaume, an investigator at OLTIM 34. Who deciphers the issues of such sesames once the beneficiaries have it in hand: “with false documents from the Schengen area, you can do anything, work and take steps to settle in France.”

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“One had won the lottery, he asked him for €10,000 for the false identity card”

After several months of digging, an Albanian network was dismantled, “up to four false documents per month”, Slovenian, Italian or Bulgarian papers, at 500 euros. “It was also down to the client: one had won the lottery in Alès, he was asked for €10,000… He refused”, the police officer reports.

At the head of the pyramid, a Kosovar, Naser K., is wanted for murder. His right-hand man, Kristian T., is the subject of an arrest warrant after his sentence to two years in prison by the Montpellier judicial court at the end of 2024.

Operation “Sweet Potato”

“Sweet potato”: this is how the OLTIM 34 sleuths named the case that kept them busy in the agricultural sector. Because the boss of a company supplying illegal labor to wine estates tried to bribe them by opening the trunk of his car filled with sweet potatoes.

Initially, four illegal immigrants, Moroccans, were spotted in Cessenon-sur-Orb (Hérault), while they were pruning the vines, during the winter of 2022. The employer had gone through a company in Lunel for this labor, but had not carried out the paper checks. “Identity document, employment contract, certificate of up-to-date contributions to the agricultural social security fund… The operator must request these documents” reminds Lionel, the lead investigator.

Two domain owners were fined, the third, who was just starting out, was given a warning. As for the Lunellois, Adil E., who supplied the illegal immigrants, his company was liquidated, he received a suspended prison sentence at the end of October 2024 and he will have to pay €70,000 in overdue contributions, with a ban on managing a business.

Dozens of illegal immigrants to lay fiber in Lozère

At the beginning of March, before the judicial court of Mende (Lozère), two entrepreneurs will be tried, suspected of being at the origin of an immigration network of Tunisians in an irregular situation, via their fiber installation company.

At the beginning, it was a routine road check that aroused the suspicions of the prefecture: a Tunisian national Tunisian presents a fake driving license. OLTIM34 seizes it and notes that these two telephone companies, created in Puy-en-Velay (43) have hired about ten illegal immigrants, half of whom do not have a work permit and three are carrying false papers.

The company then changed its name and again, out of the twenty employees, most of them cable installers, a third had falsified documents. “The false documents were made in Turkey and cost €3,000 each” informs Lionel, the investigating police officer. These companies worked as subcontractors for one of the largest fibre optic installation companies in Europe, between Saint-Etienne and Mende, where the workers were also housed.

The tax authorities are already claiming more than €80,000 in damages related to these non-declarations, while large sums of cash were allegedly transferred abroad.

In campsites, pretending to be someone else in a legal situation

The case of the “girls in red” is not so far away, except geographically. In campsites in Grau-du-Roi (Gard) or Palavas, the manager of a cleaning company and his Moroccan wife brought in many people, mainly from Morocco, to employ them.

With false papers and using the “look like” system: resemblance of the holder of a passport with the Schengen visa. Of the thirty or so cleaners checked, all wearing red T-shirts, more than half did not have the right to work or were in an irregular situation.

“She took charge of them in the morning with her husband to go to the campsites which for their part did not show any vigilance”, reports Carole, the investigator. These women were sometimes paid, hand to hand, €40 per day, without an employment contract or Urssaf declaration for those in an irregular situation. The manager's trial, scheduled for early December 2024, will finally be held in September 2025.

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