National fraud probe opened

Organized crime groups sought to defraud the French state of millions of euros meant for workers left jobless by the virus lockdown, prosecutors said Friday.

France had an exceptionally generous temporary unemployment scheme that subsidized workers’ salaries while restaurants, schools and businesses across the economy shut down to contain the virus.

Criminals took advantage of it, successfully obtaining more than 2 million euros from the state that did not go to workers, the Paris prosecutor’s office said in a statement. Authorities so far have been able to suspend another 6 million euros in scheduled payments and recover 421,000 euros already spent on nonexistent workers, it said.

The Paris prosecutor’s office is now leading a nationwide investigation into what it calls “massive fraud” by organized crime groups.

Chronicle News Services