According to a report by the French news portal L’Independant, a Romanian HGV driver was arrested on Wednesday in Narbonne following a fraud complaint by motorway service operator Vinci Autoroutes.
The motorway operator accuses the aforementioned driver of using 41 stolen or degaussed bank cards over a 12-month period. The cards were used to pay for road tolls worth a total of €5,000.
Apart from taking the driver into custody, police officers also immobilized the HGV. Moreover, they searched the vehicle for the aforementioned cards, albeit to no avail.
However, according to the article, the driver who was arrested must not have been the only person who used the vehicle throughout the year. The police haven’t shared any details about the other driver or drivers.
When passing the motorway road toll booths in France, motorists don’t need to enter their PIN code for paying the toll, as a contactless payment system is in place.
This allows motorway users to go through the gates faster and traffic can flow smoothly. However, it also allows fraudsters to use stolen or degaussed cards without being noticed for a long time.
In this case, Vinci recognised the number plate of the vehicle after a while and reported the incident to the police.
This is not the first time that Vinci has filed a complaint for this type of fraud, the article says.
“We have noticed that most incidents of a similar nature to this started two years ago. Possibly even as much as six years ago. What is difficult for us is to determine is the place and time of passage. Therefore, we cannot inform the Gendarmerie if we do not have all these details,” Vinci told the newspaper regarding the difficulties it has had identifying the fraudsters.
An investigation regarding this case is ongoing and more details are expected to be shared by police later.
Photo: Poudou99, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (image cropped)
