On May 20, 2025, a large-scale police operation was conducted against Oportik, a French company specializing in the online sale of counterfeit mobile phones and accessories, reports FranceInfo. Located in the Paris region, the company is suspected of having marketed undetectable small phones, which were primarily intended for inmates.
Searches in 500 cells
Several thousand devices, capable of passing through security gates and metal detectors, were sold by Oportik. A mini-phone is no more cumbersome than a lighter. It's ideal for going unnoticed in a prison, under the guards' radar. In the wake of this, the French police conducted an operation dubbed "Prison Break" in several prisons across France. Law enforcement officers orchestrated a series of cell searches in an attempt to seize the mini-phones sold by Oportik. Nearly "500 cells" located in "66 detention centers across the country" were searched by investigators from the Paris judicial police and gendarmes, the Paris prosecutor's office explained in a press release. Using the mini-phones manufactured by Oportik, the detainees were able to "commit, while in custody, the offenses of drug trafficking, fraud, damage to businesses by fire, and attempted contract killings." Undetectable and "unmasked" phones Before its forced closure, Oportik did not hesitate to promote its mini-phones on Snapchat, an application widely used by criminals. In promotional videos, inmates were even seen in their cells using mini-phones.
On its website, now forcibly shut down by the police, the company from Drancy (Seine-Saint-Denis) promoted "UNDETECTABLE mini-phones and accessories", prepared "as much as possible (unpacked) and tested to avoid ringing at security gates and metal detectors." In short, the company specializes in buying Chinese phones at bargain prices. Several references are displayed by Oportik on AliExpress, or even on Amazon. They are then tampered with to pass through the gates. The operation, called "deplating," involves removing all metal parts from the device.
We were able to consult old versions of the website and discovered that Oportik sold a wide range of small phones "the size of a lighter or a credit card", ranging from 28.90 to 100 euros. Oportik boasted of selling "completely undetectable products, by dismantling and removing anything that could trigger the gate" in order to meet the needs of its "specific clientele". The firm claims to target people working as "magistrates, lawyers, railway or air traffic controllers, private security agents", and not criminals behind bars.
All "the phones we offer must be swiped at once and with a fully discharged battery", the company explained. The offering combines both simple phones, limited to calls and texts, and more comprehensive smartphones, equipped with a camera and 4G. To pass through security checkpoints, some more sophisticated phones had to be disassembled first, Oportik conceded, citing the case of the JELLY PRO, known as the world's smallest 4G smartphone. All sorts of small accessories were also found, such as HDMI sticks, bracelet-shaped chargers, and USB sticks.
Data collection via backdoors
The company, which relies exclusively on low-cost gadgets made in China, is accused of "administering a platform enabling illicit transactions" and "receiving stolen goods." Police are now looking into the data recovered during the seizure of Oportik's official website. Authorities hope to discover the directory of all the company's customers. In 2023, the company declared €151,000 in turnover, according to the Pappers website, which lists all legal, judicial, and financial informationon companies registered in France.
The prosecutor's office specifies that the firm's 5,000 phones, "in circulation on national territory", are in the authorities' sights. Once recovered, the phones "will be examined by Anssi". The National Agency for the Security of Information Systems will "verify the possible aspiration of data abroad through backdoors". Police suspect that backdoors embedded in the devices could leak information to foreign countries. All eyes are obviously on China, where the devices are manufactured.
Source: FranceInfo
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