A million illegally registered cars are on French roads due to fraudulent activities, causing millions of euros in losses, according to a report by the French state audit agency, the BBC reports.
The fraudulent scheme has allowed fake car dealers to alter records at the national vehicle registration agency (SIV), allowing unsafe cars to circulate on the country’s roads, thereby endangering lives. It has also contributed to an increase in crime. The system’s flaws have allowed a wide range of criminals – from petty offenders to organised crime – to access the registration system to commit offences.
The fraudulent scheme began in 2017, when the French government decided to allow the partial privatisation of the registration system, hoping to speed up the notoriously slow delivery of registration documents to car buyers.
Around 2,000 civil servants were reassigned and instead access to the system was given to car dealers to issue documents to customers. According to the French Court of Auditors, the new approach relied heavily and wrongly on good faith. In fact, unscrupulous operators have been adept at abusing the system, setting up shell companies to make corrections to the register for a fee. The report notes that
there are currently almost a million cars on the country’s roads, registered by around 300 fictitious companies
operating without any state control.
The registration documents presented to the police look perfectly normal, but then neither the car nor its driver can be traced. The report notes that in 2022-2024 alone, the state suffered losses of 550 million euros due to uncollected registration fees and fines for speeding and parking violations.
In total, the Court of Auditors has listed 30 different types of fraud linked to the scheme, from environmental tax payments to falsifying roadworthiness tests.
The material published by the newspaper Le Monde describes one part of the scheme that allowed importers of luxury cars to avoid paying tens of thousands of euros in import and environmental taxes. This was done by registering Rolls-Royce and Mercedes cars as specially adapted for people with disabilities, which means that these cars are not subject to taxes.
Fraudsters also re-registered stolen cars to avoid detection,
and drug trafficking gangs used them for deliveries.
The newspaper Le Figaro reported that police found a very sharp increase in speeding violations between 2016 and 2022, but when examining car registration data, they concluded that many of them were fake. The Court of Auditors said the state had failed to carry out checks on more than 30,000 car dealers with access to the SIV. Potential users of the system had only to set up a shell company and apply for access to the register, which was mostly granted. A person close to the situation told Le Monde that this was done to reduce state involvement. Previously, people had to wait in lines for up to two hours to receive documents, and everyone complained about it, but at least everything was checked properly.
The French Interior Ministry has said it recognises the problem and is working to resolve it. An action plan was launched last year, which has led to more fraud being uncovered, while access to the SIV is being assessed more strictly.
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