This 53-year-old man sold door-to-door sales, often among the elderly, to offer various jobs at home. If he finds himself before the Montluçon Criminal Court, it is for having hidden his income between 2011 and 2015.
The gendarmes estimate at some 300,000 euros the sums he earned during this period for his professional activities, without declaring them to the social security scheme for the self-employed.
Checks cashed by the whole family
The investigation by the gendarmes began after complaints from residents of Commentry, unhappy that this entrepreneur had somewhat forced their hand. The men of the Montluçon and Gir research brigade (regional intervention group) meticulously found a total of ninety-three clients in France, who paid for the fifty-year-old’s services, in cash or by check.
In Néris-les-Bains (Allier), the owner of a hotel organizes a descent to the tenant to recover his keys and his money
Some blank checks given by his clients – he always said he was going to put his stamp, which he did not do – were cashed in the many bank accounts of the entrepreneur, his partner or his daughters. Others were used to pay bills directly, like this check for a few hundred euros that paid for a stay in Morocco.
This man, who says he lives in a trailer and is single today, pleaded negligence. “I did not do any harm,” “I lack education,” he said at the bar.
“We must strike the portfolio so that the risk-benefit ratio is not in their favor,” said the prosecution.
Mercedes confiscation
The entrepreneur was sentenced to two years in prison with probationary sentence and banned from carrying on a business or running a business for fifteen years. His former partner, prosecuted for money laundering, received a one-year suspended sentence.
Justice also confiscated some 64,000 euros seized from their bank accounts as well as Vuitton bags for a value of 5,000 euros and three vehicles (including two Mercedes class C). The gendarmes had seized in all the equivalent of 130,000 euros.
Guillaume Bellavoine
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