Identity fraud is a crime that is punishable by one year of imprisonment and a €15,000 fine. Last April, the mother of a family was convicted for having spent three years fraudulently claiming to be a qualified medical doctor. Here we look back at this high-risk scam.

Fraud and impersonation charges for the mother

Over the course of three years, a 31-year-old woman, mother of three children and holder of a vocational training certificate in real estate management, had been practicing at the occupational medicine and healthcare center at Champs-sur-Marne, in the suburbs of Paris, France. In what capacity? As an occupational physician.

Unemployed since 2018, the young woman said she felt hounded by the need for money, to the extent that she applied for a job she was not qualified to do. After giving Covid-19 vaccines at the height of the epidemic, she was caught out for her fraudulent behavior in October 2021. The center discovered that she had falsified certificates and that she was using a fake RPPS (French health professionals directory) number.

When her employer discovered that she had invented a fake degree from the faculty of medicine of Strasbourg, she was fired on the spot, after having managed to declare close to €70,000 in taxable income per year in 2019 and 2020.

Comeback as an ophthalmologist

While the story could have ended there, the defendant, who had already been sentenced to wear an electronic bracelet a few years previously for breach of trust, decided to come back as an ophthalmologist!

She practiced for one month, having stolen the identity of two qualified professionals. She notably held sessions in various towns in the Seine-et-Marne area before being discovered and arrested.

Léa Dreyfus, deputy public prosecutor, called for a two-year prison sentence (including one year without remission) for this woman who put hundreds of lives at risk. In the end, the fake-doctor was sentenced to three years, including two without remission, for having “shown such strong will to commit fraud,” according to the presiding judge.