[HN Gopher] Two scammers, a web of betrayal, and Europe's fraud ...
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Two scammers, a web of betrayal, and Europe's fraud of the century
Author : samclemens
Score : 141 points
Date : 2024-03-10 06:06 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (magazine.atavist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (magazine.atavist.com)
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> I should say here that Gustav Daphne is a pseudonym. He
| remains a wanted man in France, so when I traveled to meet with
| him at his gated villa in Tel Aviv, he agreed to speak on the
| condition that I not use his name--any of his names._
|
| This caught my attention and I decided to do some sleuthing to
| see how hard it would be to figure out the real name and...
| there's dozens of people that might fit the description [1]. The
| cynic in me notes that they all seem to have dogs that the
| journalist just has to write, I guess as some sort of PR
| technique via emotional hook.
|
| _> He made contacts and built extensive networks of people
| willing to help him import and export fake goods, and he traveled
| around the world despite the risk it carried._
|
| Took quite a turn towards the end. He didn't turn over a new
| leaf, at all.
|
| [1]
| https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/06/03/t...
| (https://archive.ph/yG1dN)
| tromp wrote:
| According to [1],
|
| > In 2008 and 2009, multiple groups of fraudsters took advantage
| of differing tax rules in different EU countries to buy and sell
| carbon credits, or permission to emit carbon dioxide, on
| exchanges in Europe. The scammers would buy the credits in a
| country with no value-added tax, and quickly sell them in France
| or other countries that did charge VAT.
|
| > Stephane Alzraa, 38, was extradited from Israel following a
| request by French authorities.
|
| > Aknin remains in Israel, where he is fighting extradition
|
| This 39 year old Michael Aknin seems to fit the story...
|
| [1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/trial-starts-for-franco-
| israel...
| canadiantim wrote:
| Is that fraud or just arbitrage?
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > Is that fraud or just arbitrage?
|
| It's VAT fraud, so literally tax fraud.
| bsder wrote:
| If you read the article, it's fraud.
|
| They ran the exact same fraud as had been run on cell phones.
|
| > Criminals imported phones from other EU countries, sold
| them to consumers with VAT tacked on, pocketed the tax, and
| disappeared before anyone was the wiser. Or they used
| carousel schemes, pretending to sell phones through a chain
| of businesses created for the express purpose of fraud and
| requesting VAT reimbursements from governments at each point
| of sale.
| hef19898 wrote:
| This way of cheating with VAT is as old as there is a pan-
| European VAT agreement (the way to declare and manage it,
| not the amount). And sure as hell, there is always someone
| to try it. And sure as hell, someone is surprised they
| ultimately get cought...
| az226 wrote:
| They pocketed the sales tax and then never sent it to the
| government.
| nhggfu wrote:
| Where / what are these "exchanges" in Europe? examples ?
| code_duck wrote:
| They are mentioned many times in the article. Powernext and
| Bluenext.
| shrubble wrote:
| Israel does not necessarily extradite for financial fraud, that
| is why Aknin is fighting it in court. There are many legal
| maneuvers available in the Israeli court system.
| rodgerd wrote:
| Israel refuses to extradite child rapists; hardly surprising
| that they'd refuse to give up mere fraudsters.
| coryrc wrote:
| Neither does France
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Only if you're a French citizen do they not extradite.
| Might try you locally for your crimes abroad though.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > Might try you locally for your crimes abroad though.
|
| Not for child rapists though[1]...
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski_sexual
| _abuse_...
| Scoundreller wrote:
| _famous_ child rapists. Non-famous child rapists need not
| apply for special treatment.
| Beretta_Vexee wrote:
| As far as extradition is concerned, in France, people
| with dual nationality (or several nationalities) are
| considered to be French and benefit from the rules
| applicable to French nationals (refusal of extradition).
| However, the date on which the offence was committed
| determines whether the perpetrator was French at the time
| of the offence. This is the point that poses a problem,
| as most of the perpetrators applied for Israeli
| nationality after the fact.
|
| Very few countries extradite their nationals. The
| question is whether they are prosecuted in their country.
| Judicial cooperation between France and Israel is very
| poor. The problem with Israel is that it lets murderers
| go free. There are several scandalous cases of refusal to
| extradite and prosecute (an ex-policeman swatted the
| father of a rival in a scam buisness, the elderly father
| died of a heart attack). This has prompted the French
| state to mount operations with the Italian and Cypriot
| police to arrest French-Israelis outside of France.
| kostas4949 wrote:
| I think it's Cyril Astruc. His parents fit the job descriptions
| in the article: tailor and teacher.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| Absolutely. Also searching for his name shows pictures that
| perfectly fit the physical description and Vanity Fair link
| in the article.
|
| Of course, it could just be one of his many pseudonyms ;)
| resolutebat wrote:
| Bingo. "He dressed in blazers cut from blue velvet or
| embroidered with shimmering brocade flowers. He liked to wear
| a diamond-encrusted Chopard sun pendant on his partially
| bared chest."
|
| https://image-
| uniservice.linternaute.com/image/450/105809602...
| dantondwa wrote:
| Funny that he is now into... cryptocurrencies. The man has
| experience with bogus markets.
| octopusRex wrote:
| So when does Netflix make a limited series based on this.
| burningChrome wrote:
| I think they already did in 2021 called "Lords of Scam".
| Atxgirl1415 wrote:
| Wow.. that is so crazy. Thank you for the good read
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > The way the system was supposed to work was simple enough: The
| EU would set an annual cap on its overall emissions, then issue
| various emitters a certain number of EU allowances. Each EUA
| would entitle its holder to emit one ton of carbon.
|
| I'm a serial pirate and I'll only do worse next year. Can you pay
| me to pirate a bit less next year, while giving nothing to those
| that never pirated at all?
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| It's not really comparable because the pollution was being
| generated as a byproduct of a presumably useful service or
| industry. This puts polluters under a regulatory limit that
| didn't exist before, gives the time to adjust while also
| providing an early incentive to decarbonise sooner rather than
| later (they can sell the credits they didn't need to use).
| thworp wrote:
| Yes that is totally comparable. After all, those emitters
| didn't do anything of use to anyone. It's especially bad when
| you consider that there countries that have successfully
| prevented this industrial crime: Afghanistan, Chad, Ethiopia,
| Madagascar, Laos...
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| You forgot China and the US. Now your list is not that
| impressive, is it?
| mellutussa wrote:
| I'd love to listen to a podcast about this.
|
| When I saw "fraud of the century" I thought it was the OneCoin
| scam (Ruja Ignatova, "The Crypto Queen"). BBC did a very detailed
| investigative podcast about that one:
| https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/uj5nz-a0b8a/The-Missi...
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| I was thinking of Wirecard. There's an awful lot of centry-
| level financial fraud going around right now.
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/how-the-bigges...
| robocat wrote:
| Wirecard was EUR1.9 billion. The cum-ex trading scandal
| siphoned up to EUR55 billion. My lawyer went to school with
| one of the major guys involved.
|
| https://theconversation.com/the-robbery-of-the-century-
| the-c...
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Wirecard's max market cap was $27 billion, which puts it in
| the ballpark of Enron, which was itself a scale of the
| century. That is of course an inflated value, both by
| market cap being inflated, and inflation having occurred
| between the two events, but wirecard card is worth
| mentioning - when it broke, who could have imagined that we
| would have three or four more of these?
| robocat wrote:
| Comparing Market cap to fraud amounts isn't really
| sensible.
|
| The EUR55 billion was income and you shouldn't usually
| compare income to market capitalisation. Unless you are
| comparing against NAV fraud (which is made up numbers so
| NAV fraud is _somewhat_ meaningless!)
| hef19898 wrote:
| CumEx was my first guess as well. Not some basic run the
| mill VAT cheating.
| newprint wrote:
| Like FTX/SBF, this person would have probably become an
| accomplished businessman, if his criminal mind wasn't in his way.
| Fascinating to read how crafty those people in exploiting any
| gaps where potential profits could be made. They are like is
| financial "hackers" that can segfault some .org.
| mkoryak wrote:
| Like SBF?
| newprint wrote:
| yes, you are right !
| robocat wrote:
| > criminal mind
|
| Good white-hat hacking (tax|legal|financial|computer) also
| requires a criminal mind I believe!!! Bending or twisting rules
| and knowing which rules to break! Criminality is dependent on
| your context. Risk/reward is a key feature of economics.
|
| My personal word for a drug-dealer is entrepreneur.
| jongjong wrote:
| People who say this usually come from a place of privilege.
| They profoundly misunderstand how the world works and the
| significant role of luck. If these people hadn't cheated, they
| would be broke and struggling to make ends meet. I never met
| anyone in my life who made any serious money without some kind
| of cheating or fraud or unethical conduct either by them or
| their ancestors.
| newprint wrote:
| >I never met anyone in my life who made any serious money
| without some kind of cheating or fraud or unethical conduct
| either by them or their ancestors.
|
| You have picked a wrong crowd. That is on you. Go talk to
| surgeons, doctors, pharma researchers - very decent people,
| who made/make serious money.
| jongjong wrote:
| >> surgeons, doctors, pharma researchers
|
| Who paid their rent and university fees while they were
| studying for 10 years to become a doctor?
| xarope wrote:
| Are you insinuating that surgeons, doctors, pharma
| researchers cannot pay rent and university fees without
| their parents resorting to illegal activity?
|
| There are such well known things as student loans,
| working whilst studying (some very successful doctors
| have talked about having to bus tables whilst studying)
| defrost wrote:
| 10 years?
|
| Where are you?
|
| It can be 3 year Bachelors degree + 4 years M.D. (seven
| years total) with the opportunity to earn money as a
| resident or rural practitioner while completing the M.D.
|
| https://study.unimelb.edu.au/find/pathways/doctor/
|
| If your grades are good you can be accepted and either
| pay back fees when earning or ride through on a
| scholarship if good enough to qualify.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| You must spend a long time in residency with brutal
| working hours and typically very little pay. It's been a
| well known complaint for years that this system tends to
| naturally exclude people who don't come from privilege.
| popcalc wrote:
| I assume when the parent says "serious money", he means 9
| digits plus.
| lupusreal wrote:
| That is "the parent".
| lupusreal wrote:
| Criminals tend to think that everybody else is a criminal
| too, and get offended when caught because they feel singled
| out. But it's not true, it's just a coping mechanism they
| adopt to excuse themselves.
|
| It's amazing how pervasive this mentality is. The premise of
| buying something for one amount of money, processing it and
| then selling it for more is totally alien to people in this
| mode of thinking. In their mind, a man could not possibly
| make money by buying uncooked hotdogs, cooking them and
| selling them for more. No, he must be stealing the hotdogs,
| or using fake hotdogs, or stealing the wages of his
| employees, or some other scheme. Anything other than simple
| honest business, which they feel sure cannot exist.
|
| Unfortunately you seem to be thinking in this mode, since
| evidently you believe that criminal activity is the only way
| somebody could get through medical school.
| hef19898 wrote:
| It seems to have been pretty basic VAT fraud. Nothing smart or
| havky about that. Happens dozens of times every day at various
| scales. And each and every time it is just plain old tax fraud.
| newprint wrote:
| it is very simple fraud, but someone still has to come-up
| with how to make it work. carbon credits(figure out how to
| buy them) -> VAT fraud(figure out how/where/to whom to sell
| them) -> Profit(Hide profit/launder/invest). It is not much
| different from the cigarette fraud in the US. Buy cheaper in
| Maryland -> sell for more in New York,where taxes on
| cigarette are higher. Distance between NYC & Maryland is
| about 3-4h.
| bsaul wrote:
| Netflix has a great documentary about this story. The french name
| is << les rois de l'arnaque >>.
| me_bx wrote:
| A mini-series was also recently released: Of Money and Blood.
|
| Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLzlimhCdkA
| sambf wrote:
| Based on Fabrice Arfi's book of the same name. He works at
| Mediapart, a french journal that outed many state scandals.
| He's also one of the four french members of the International
| Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
| casefields wrote:
| Lords of Scam is the English title.
| personjerry wrote:
| > He bought her a Bugatti in green, like her eyes.
|
| > The problem was that he lacked capital. He needed more than the
| 80,000 euros he'd received from El Ghazouani.
|
| A Bugatti is like a few million dollars no? This discrepancy
| doesn't make sense to me, if he already had the money on that
| scale why did a few hundred thousand euros of investment matter
| so desperately?
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| Lombard credit on fake accounting?
| LeonM wrote:
| > A Bugatti is like a few million dollars no?
|
| Back then when they were new it was more like 800k.
|
| But yeah, this part stood out for me as well. My guess is he
| either financed the car, or didn't pay for it at all (just have
| it repo'd, you'd still have impressed the girl). Or the whole
| story is fake, you never know with these kind of serial
| scammers, their whole life is a lie.
| Beretta_Vexee wrote:
| I don't know if it's available outside France. But Netflix has
| made a documentary in french about Marco Mouly "Les Rois de
| l'arnaque" / "Kings of the scam". The least we can say is that
| he's a real piece of work. Most of the people involved are such
| caricatures of sephard that you wouldn't put them in a work of
| fiction. The man is a clown, boasts, lies, but at some point you
| can also see the fear in his eyes when his daughter is 15 minutes
| late because he fears for the lives of his loved ones. It's
| really the story of a couple of small-time VAT fraudsters from a
| poor Parisian suburb who stumbled onto something way too big for
| them and got caught out by some real gangsters.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| https://www.netflix.com/title/81092697
|
| Available in 33 countries:
| https://unogs.com/movie/81092697/lords-of-scam
| malshe wrote:
| Thanks for the Netflix link. I tried to read the story in
| earnest but couldn't understand the mechanics of the scam
| well. Probably the documentary will explain it more.
| rokkitmensch wrote:
| What, praytell, is a caricature of a sephard?
| the-chitmonger wrote:
| Quick google search brings up a subset of Spanish Jewish
| population. Not sure if this was a typo or if it's a very
| specific regional slur?
| rokkitmensch wrote:
| I (a Jew) generally abhor the ADL and friends' behavior in
| public, but in this case I hope strongly for a typo.
| Figuring the best approach is to offer the poster the
| chance to present something plausible.
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