What's happening in Aubervilliers?

In the shadow of the warehouses of Cifa loaded with Chinese ideograms in Aubervilliers, a hypothesis formulated by all has just been validated, transforming this city famous for its textile wholesalers into an eternal obscure hub of money laundering. At the heart of this wholesalers' triangle, the Fashion Center, managed by the Wenzhou community, becomes the place where the threads of a complex web are woven. In the sights of justice for over five years, customs investigators, through numerous raids, have once again laid hands on a criminal network of unexpected scale. In 2018, a similar case had been unveiled within this same center, involving a network that allegedly laundered several tens of millions in a year. This time, the Paris Criminal Court is preparing to examine in detail the activities of Cifa. 21 individuals including Chinese-origin wholesalers, Moroccan traffickers, and even import-export companies, find themselves in the dock and will have to answer to charges of organized money laundering and criminal association.

The trial, scheduled until March 29, highlights the complex mechanisms that allegedly transformed Cifa into an illicit financial center. For now, the presented evidence includes raids, with the seizure of nearly 600,000 euros, cleverly concealed within mannequins. The judicial intrigue unveils a sophisticated system, involving collectors and compensators, linked to the trafficking of cannabis resin imported from Morocco. Parallel to the trial, a complex web of international ramifications is emerging. North African collectors, often associated with drug trafficking, channel a "massive flow of cash" to the International Wholesale Trade Center France-Asia. Illicit funds are then integrated into the legal textile trade operated by wholesalers. The money laundering process involves transforming cash into bank transfers to Asian, mainly Chinese, accounts. These transfers are made alongside legitimate commercial activities, thus masking the criminal origin of the funds. An inventive facet of the modus operandi lies in using laundered money to purchase textiles from Chinese wholesalers. These goods are then resold to other wholesalers in Morocco, creating a facade of legitimate transactions that allow traffickers to recover clean funds while continuing the laundering process.

The network relies on a "saraf", an underground banker residing in Morocco. The latter facilitates transactions where funds are converted and routed between Moroccan dirhams and euros. Chinese traders in Europe, associated with production factories in China, play a crucial role in this international compensation phase. The network exploits loopholes in customs procedures by engaging in import-export frauds. Under-declared or undeclared containers allow for the introduction of goods at values much lower than their actual worth, thus facilitating tax evasion. Lists of goods on instant messaging platforms, such as WeChat, are used to coordinate movements while minimizing paper trails. Lastly, the network maintains its high level of complexity by regularly changing managers and corporate structures. This tactic aims to blur tracks, making it difficult to trace transactions and hold individuals accountable. Companies in Cifa thus become dynamic actors, appearing and disappearing rapidly to clean accounts and evade investigations. But it's not just a story of organized crime and judicial trial. Beyond a tale of organized crime, these cases have managed to captivate pop culture, inspiring series such as "Engrenages". The city of Aubervilliers unveils itself in all its complexity, revealing a dark side that defies expectations and fuels imaginations.