The couriers were found to be in contact with Alain Jochimek, the company’s general manager in France, and also with representatives of the company in London, sources close to the investigation told BuzzFeed News. Jochimek was arrested this week and was charged with money laundering and VAT fraud in court on Friday. He was released on €30,000 bail, and the sources say he denied all the charges, but he declined to comment when reporters visited his home in the affluent Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine on Saturday.

The Lycamobile employees were also in contact with a couple suspected of acting as a conduit to money-laundering networks, the sources said. Investigators discovered that the pair appeared to control most of the alleged shell companies that had funnelled millions into Lycamobile Services via what seemed to be puppet directors. The man and woman were both charged with the same offences as Jochimek on Friday, and the man was remanded in custody while the woman was released on bail with a bond of €8,000. The couple could not be reached for comment.

A group of Lycamobile’s cash couriers and officers of some of the alleged shell companies were also charged with money laundering and bailed out. The remaining 10 people who were arrested were released without charge, though sources say they remain under investigation.

Following the arrests, BuzzFeed News attempted to contact all directors of the 19 alleged shell companies accused of paying more than €1 million each into Lycamobile’s accounts, and visited the registered addresses of those listed in Paris. Almost all of the addresses were in run-down tower blocks or social housing units in deprived parts of the city, and more than half of the directors could not be found there – there was no sign of their names on resident listings or letterboxes and neighbours had never heard of them.

A man listed on French corporate records as a former director of Express Tel et Communications, the company that was registered at a run-down mobile phone shop, confirmed that he had worked at the company several years ago but said he knew nothing about the payments, although he had heard of Lycamobile. The other directors of that company could not be reached. Relatives of the director of another company that had made big payments for airtime said he was away for Ramadan. They said he had mentioned some work for Lycamobile in the past, then asked reporters if they were working with the police. At the apartment block of the director of another firm, relatives told reporters the man was no longer professionally active because of ill health and was not available to comment. None of the other directors of any of the companies could be reached.

The raids last week were not the first time French prosecutors have targeted Lycamobile. Investigators have exhumed the case files of a previous investigation into alleged money laundering that was launched in 2006 after the company was found transporting large amounts of cash over the border into Germany in the back of a van without declaring it to customs. After a lengthy inquiry, the charges were dropped in 2010 due to lack of evidence, and the existence of the case has never been previously reported. But the files are now being re-examined in light of the fresh investigation, and BuzzFeed News can reveal the details for the first time.