The authorities have just sounded the alarm about a new large-scale fraud campaign, whose perpetrators are posing as law enforcement in order to obtain an illegitimate payment.
The concept itself is nothing new; For many years, criminals have been trying to extract money from individuals by impersonating the authorities. These scams often take the form of threatening emails that accuse the recipient of more or less serious offenses.
But recently, the Gendarmerie has noted the resurgence of a particularly vicious modus operandi: accusing victims of crimes involving children, in a letter full of legislative jargon and bearing a false stamp from the Minors Protection Brigade.
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#CyberSecurity 📩 You have received an email from the “Central Directorate of the Gendarmerie
Brigade for the protection of minors “❓
👉 IT’S A SCAM!
✅ Don’t pay
✅ Do not respond
✅ Do not click on any links or attachments
✅ Report it at ⤵️https://t.co/g8AgDWYFDr pic.twitter.com/QwZWlEkoH5— National Gendarmerie (@Gendarmerie) October 9, 2025
The objective is always the same: to panic users and push them to contact the criminals quickly to prevent the affair from taking on even greater proportions. Once contact has been established, the latter will therefore have plenty of time to drive home the point by distributing malware via additional false documents, collecting personal information which will then be resold, or even obtaining payment of a certain sum.
Comment identifier ces faux documents ?
Fortunately, it is entirely possible to avoid falling into the trap by paying attention to a few fairly evocative signals.
The first, and most obvious, is thatno government institution — whether the police, the gendarmerie or other judicial bodies — will never use email to notify a charge or summons. These contacts are made almost exclusively through registered mail or by hand. Therefore, any email referring to this type of serious crime – especially of a sexual nature – will necessarily be a scam or a phishing attempt.
Another element should immediately attract the attention of victims: the fact that the letter explicitly asks for official documents, starting with a copy of a passport. This is a clear warning signal, and for good reason: real law enforcement will never, under any circumstances, require the sending of identity documents by email, especially in such a delicate context.
Another clue is hidden in the e-mail address mentioned in the false document: it is built around a domain name that is not official. If a real institution seeks to contact you by email for any reason, they will always do so from an address that ends with @interieur.gouv.fr, @justice.gouv.fr or @gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr.
Finally, several elements of language should raise eyebrows among readers. The text contains several fairly informal expressions, such as Dear Internet userwhich will never be used in official government communication.
How to react?
The best way to manage these requests is to completely ignore and especially not to respond to messages. Furthermore, it is crucial not to be intimidated and not to give in to scammers. This obviously implies not paying any money and not sending personal documents, as these could then be used to blackmail the victim or usurp their identity.
Although it may be tempting, it is also important to do not click on any attachments. These could in fact contain different types of malware which, in the worst case, can be used by hackers to extract sensitive information from your computer (contact details, identifiers, etc.).
Finally, the National Gendarmerie recommends report all these scam attempts on the cybermalveillance.gouv.fr platformso that the institution can then alert the population as it did in this case.
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