Overview
- Nearly one million vehicles were registered through fictitious garages, with the Court estimating more than €550 million in lost revenue between 2022 and 2024.
- More than 30,000 private actors obtained direct access to the SIV after 2017, enabling over 30 fraud scenarios including CO2 malus evasion by misclassifying high‑end SUVs as VASP.
- Oversight collapsed as prefectures checked only about 3% of accredited professionals annually, national control campaigns stopped after 2022, and just 9% of detected cases were sent to prosecutors in 2024.
- The Interior Ministry’s May 2025 plan cites a 60% rise in detected frauds and a cut in SIV accreditations from roughly 39,000 to about 27,000, but the Court deems these measures insufficient without upstream detection and a redesigned SIV.
- Law enforcement warns these ‘invisible’ cars facilitate organized crime and keep unsafe vehicles on the road, and the Court calls for sharply reducing access to vetted “trusted third parties” and restoring pre‑registration controls.