‘Fake’ Paris attacks survivor ‘stole thousands of euros from terror victims’ fund’

The 48-year-old woman, from the southern Paris suburb of Val-de-Marne, had been a paid staff member of the victims’ group Life For Paris – a charity dedicated to helping the victims of the attack – since last March.

The woman, whose identity remains unknown, told the Guarantee Fund for Victims of Terrorism and Other Offences (FGTI) she had been at the Bataclan concert hall the night 90 revellers were shot dead, a judicial insider said.

She admitted to making a fraudulent claim while in police custody and is due to appear in court on Wednesday, local prosecutors said, before confirming she had received a total of €25,000 (£22,000) from the FGTI in compensation.

Prosecutors said the fake victim had abused her position as a Life For Paris employee to “draw up false documents”.

Arthur Denouveaux, the president of Life For Paris, said the woman had been on the official list of victims, and it was the charity that realised something was amiss with her file.

He said: “Life For Paris did the checks that the state should have done.” 

The woman had already been convicted of fraud on three different occasions.

Some 130 people were killed and scores more injured after a group of Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists launched a series of coordinated shootings and bombings across the French capital on the night of November 13, 2015.

The former charity worker is not the first person to be caught posing as a victim of the attacks. Eleven people have been charged with attempting to trick the FGTI while two have been found guilty of fraud, according to the fund.

In December, ambulance driver Cedric Rey was handed a six-month prison sentence for telling investigators he had been at the Bataclan on the night of the attack when he was not even in Paris.

Mobile phone data later revealed that he had been some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the city centre when ISIS gunmen stormed the concert venue.

In December 2016, a couple who fraudulently obtained €60,000 (£53,000) from the FGTI was sentenced to between three and six years in prison.

The duo said they had been at Paris’ Stade de France when ISIS bombers detonated their suicide vests when in fact they had been at their home in Antibes, a town on the French Riviera.