The money was ostensibly for tens of millions of international minutes – but investigators found that the small companies had virtually no way to distribute such huge amounts of airtime or customers to buy it. "The total lack of economic logic accruing to these transactions implies the likely existence of a vast system of false billing" to conceal illicit payments “from various networks laundering profits from crime", French intelligence analysts wrote in a report. Investigators suspect many of the companies were secretly controlled by a couple who were both charged with conspiring with Lycamobile to launder money along with seven others on Friday. Lycamobile did not respond to repeated requests for comment before this article was published but strongly denied all the allegations in a statement sent days later.

BuzzFeed News reviewed evidence detailing how much money investigators believe the small companies paid Lycamobile Services, a French arm of the telecoms giant, and how many minutes they got in return. Then we visited the 19 companies that allegedly bought the most Lyca airtime last year to see if it was possible to buy a single phone card from any of them. This is what we found.