REPORT. "We're kind of the guardians of public finances": how "tax cops" track white-collar crime

They're considered the "tax cops." You may have seen them in the Canal+ series "D'Argent et de Sang," which chronicles the investigation into an extraordinary carbon tax fraud that cost the French government €1.6 billion. In real life, the protagonists do exist: they are agents of the National Anti-Fraud Office (ONAF).

The premises of these 300 investigators, from customs and the tax administration, and spread across ten territorial units, are located in particular in Ivry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne), just outside Paris.

Usually very discreet, they agreed to speak to franceinfo. We first meet with those from the Judicial Tax Officers Unit (OFJ). There are 45 of them. Among them is Georges, who agreed to testify, while remaining anonymous.

"This white-collar crime needs to call on external circles to launder the proceeds of fraud ," he explains. "Money laundering circles are anything but choirboys. When the organization is well established, you have assets, you have yachts, you have luxury vehicles, you have sumptuous residences, and all of that is thanks to the money from fraud."

"When we arrive and attack these assets, there are reactions that can be aggressive, or even, they can try to attack us, our missions, the tasks we have accomplished."

Georges, OFJ agent

to franceinfo

In this OFJ department, the most elaborate fraud cases are handled, with an average of €970,000 in losses to public finances per case. The investigators have the distinction of all coming from the tax authorities. They are former tax inspectors or auditors. "When I was doing tax audits, I said to myself, 'Hey, there's an area I don't have time to explore. For example, the somewhat occult subcontracting, with anomalies, flashing lights. There's something else, but I don't have time to dig into it ,' says Georges.

By moving from the administrative investigation to the judicial phase, the agent believes that "it is too easy for fraudsters, and so if I can complicate their lives and seize criminal assets, and that is my reason for being here, it is a purpose."

Onaf has seized or proposed to seize €600 million in criminal assets in 2024. Georges is driven by a desire for justice: "I'm here so that one day, people will say: 'Yes, it's fiscal, it's serious. And therefore, it deserves a criminal sanction.' Today, we see the tax pressure on taxpayers in France. Some people need to be able to say to themselves that they are right to pay what they owe because there are others who don't, and they are punished."

Be careful not to confuse television with reality, warns André, Georges' colleague: " The judicial investigation is not 45 minutes, like an episode of a TV series. It's more like four and a half years."

There are certainly spectacular operations like this search with 70 RAID agents at the home of a tax fraud suspect, but above all, there is a lot of painstaking work for these investigators. "What we call 'forensics', that is to say the collection of digital data, is at the heart of our investigations ," summarizes the head of the OFJ unit, Gérard Ton-That. "We have to be patient and methodical, we are called upon by magistrates to search for offenses that are targeted and listed. It is essentially the fact of having undeclared foreign accounts, of having artificially interposed companies abroad, in particular, of using forgeries, of making forgeries and the use of forgeries, of making false domiciliation. We are a bit like the guardians of public finances."

The other branch of ONAF is the judicial customs officers (ODJ) - headed in Paris by Christelle Sabiron - and at home, the stakes are in the millions of euros. "Most of our cases involve money laundering or suspected money laundering ," explains the director. "The second category is all fraud against the financial interests of the State or the European Union. The third category, I would say, is all customs offenses: tobacco trafficking or counterfeiting, for example."

The cases are sometimes emblematic, such as the carbon fraud. Other cases follow the same pattern of fraud. "We conducted an investigation not long ago, where the objective was for a company to be charged VAT by its suppliers who sold products at a lower price and who could thus benefit from a VAT credit. That is to say, it is the State, in fact, which pays them money. We were at almost two million," says Christelle Sabiron. Generally, the frauds concern VAT scams on vehicles or the ecological penalty. There are also several cases involving Russian oligarchs who were subject to sanctions following the conflict in Ukraine.

Christelle Sabiron has seen these criminal organizations become more specialized, more professional, and more structured. "We have networks that are often very well structured, meaning that each person has a very specific task to do, and who are still partly familiar with our investigative techniques and are very vigilant about their way of working ," she explains. " Typically, they will only use WhatsApp or Signal accounts to communicate, and very rarely, they will communicate by traditional telephone."

The head of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office, which is responsible for the majority of referrals to ONAF, praises the investigators as "excellent in their field. For us, they have truly become a key resource." And on the question of resources, Jean-François Bohnert assures that "the Ministry of the Interior has put in a bit more effort, but clearly, to move forward, and especially quickly, we need more people in the investigation department." In total, ONAF has more than 929 cases in progress, with 312 investigators today. The number of judicial tax officers is expected to increase to 80 in the long term.