

Israeli police have arrested three men accused of swindling a businessman out of €8m (£6.9m) by impersonating the French foreign minister and building a replica of his office.

The three Franco-Israelis are accused of passing themselves off as cabinet minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in emails and video calls to extract the money, claiming it was for cover operations and ransom money to release hostages held by Islamic extremists.

The men, aged between 37 and 47, were allegedly caught making a call to their victim in an apartment in a suburb of Tel Aviv in February by police and members of Israel’s international crimes unit Lahav 433.

“They called, sent mails and sometimes used the video call application Skype to pretend to be for the minister himself,” a police source told French journalists.

Investigators say they have been tracking similar scams since 2015. This one began last September when the alleged fraudsters began calling company chiefs from France’s stock exchange, the CAC 40, claiming they were discreetly seeking funds to help to pay ransoms for hostages held in Mali and Syria. Around 40 executives were approached, as well as several embassies and consulates.

According to Israeli media, the conmen constructed an exact replica of Le Drian’s office at the Quai d’Orsay - the French foreign office in Paris – including matching furniture, a tricolour flag in the background and a picture of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on the wall.

They are thought to have used a makeup expert to disguise one of the team as the minister, while another posed as Le Drian’s chief of staff, for video conferences with several French security companies they were targeting, asking for urgent financial assistance to conduct “security operations” including hostage rescues from Isis, arms purchases and other secret operations.

The fraudsters asked those they contacted to keep the approach secret to avoid implicating and embarrassing the French government.

“Most of those contacted did not reply, because it wasn’t quite the usual method used in the diplomatic and business worlds. A number had already heard of a previous attempt at fraud using Le Drian,” a French police officer said.

One businessman fell for the patter and reportedly paid €8m before realising he had been cheated and contacting police. Investigators uncovered a complex network of banking operations from eastern Europe to China, but for months were unable to track the fraudsters.

“The money went through a European account before it was sent to another in China. After some “compensation” was paid, some of it returned to Israel. In general, money-laundering specialists are different from the fraudsters [and] keep a 25% commission,” a fraud specialist told Le Parisien newspaper.

“We learned they had approached a new victim who was ready to give these three men €2m,” said a French police source. Officers accompanied the businesswoman to a meeting enabling them to identify and locate them.

Under questioning, the three men denied any involvement in the fraud. Investigators said they had seized a yacht in Tel Aviv marina as well as freezing their property assets.

The Paris prosecutors office reportedly plans to send its dossier to the Israeli court enabling the accused to be tried in Israel.

Le Drian, 71, is a former Socialist party minister, who joined Macron’s centrist government as minister for Europe and foreign affairs in 2017.