A business student who was interning at Société Générale, a leading multinational bank headquartered in France, is believed to have fed information to SIM swappers who stole from 50 customers of the bank, reports Le Parisien. The intern’s arrest prompted officers from France’s fraud police (La Brigade des Fraudes aux Moyens de Paiement, BFMP) to identify a series of alleged accomplices, including one person who specialized in taking control of the phone service of victims.
Using information provided by the intern, the SIM swapper would call the comms providers that provided service to customers of Société Générale. He would pretend to be the legitimate phone user, and that his phone had been lost so a replacement SIM would be issued to him. Having taken control of the victim’s phone service, the SIM swapper would then receive the one-time passwords sent to those numbers by Société Générale. With these codes, the gang were able to withdraw money from the bank accounts of victims. In total, it is believed that more than EUR1mn (USD1.15mn) was stolen this way.
Two other alleged accomplices were identified by police as laundering the stolen money. Raids on their Parisian homes resulted in the discovery of an unspecified amount of cash and 15 luxury designer handbags from top brands including Dior, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Hermès, Balenciaga and Givenchy. One of these suspected accomplices is a 26 year old male national of Chad with a history of violence. He is said to have conducted the money laundering in conjunction with a woman who was not previously known to police.
Another alleged accomplice is a 24 year old man from France, who is suspected of creating the fake IDs used by the gang. A police search of his home resulted in the seizure of equipment for the making of fake identity cards and fake documents. Numerous SIM cards were also seized from the property. The suspect has a record of engaging in fraud, forgery and assault.
All the victims of this gang had their losses reimbursed. Société Générale emphasized that they have controls to prevent fraud. Nevertheless, it is concerning that an intern would be able to gather data about customers and pass it on to criminal accomplices without the pattern of behavior being identified sooner.
There were approximately 500 cases of fraud involving employees of French Banks during 2024, according to France’s banking association, the Fédération Bancaire Française (FBF). The threat of insider fraud needs to be taken more seriously as criminal syndicates can exploit electronic communication to commit crimes more rapidly than ever before.
The reporting of this news by Le Parisien can be found here.
