France: Scammers grab millions in subsidies with invented electric buses

As the French daily Le Monde writes, based on its own investigations, more than half of the 600 or so electric buses registered between November 2022 and January 2023 never existed. Instead, fraudsters used loopholes in the state registration system to scam subsidies for hundreds of fictitious electric buses. They submitted fake registrations. The government’s environment ministry admitted the irregularities to Le Monde but emphasised that the state authorities quickly uncovered the fraud so that “the amounts evaded remained far below 10 million euros.” The newspaper itself speaks of up to 12 million euros that have been stolen.

According to the latest findings, the fraud took place at the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, when the number of electric bus registrations skyrocketed – from an average of 50 per month to 300 in January 2023. It is now clear that this was not a boom but a rip-off. France had just introduced the illegally tapped subsidy pot for electric trucks and buses as part of its ‘Plan France Relance’ to boost the economy, shaken by the Covid-19 pandemic and its consequences. It was filled with 100 million euros and provided up to 30,000 euros per vehicle. From 1 January 2023, the electric commercial vehicle subsidy was limited to M2 class minibuses.

To receive the subsidy, applicants had to fill out a form, attach the registration certificate of the purchased vehicle, copies of the invoice and dated order form, as well as the bank details and send it by email to the State Agency for Services and Payments (ASP). The payment was then made.

As the transbus.org portal writes based on its own analysis of bus registrations, three bus models were used for the fraud: the Karsan eJest (M2 category vehicle, 492 cases), the Bluebus 6 metre (M3 category, 11 cases) and the Heuliez GX 337 Elec (M3 category, 1 case). The serial numbers (VIN) used are said to have been between those of the actual vehicles and, in some cases, showed inconsistencies. “On some days, up to 45 fictitious electric buses were registered,” reports the portal. According to its research, a total of 504 fictitious electric buses – 201 units in 2022 and 303 in 2023 – were registered in the names of more than 120 different owners. Geographically, almost half of the fraud cases are said to be located in the Île-de-France region, predominantly in Paris and the suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis.

lemonde.fr, transbus.org (both in French)