On the afternoon of July 25, 2005, the phone rings at the Banque Postale in the posh 1st arrondissement of Paris. Marion Giroux (not her real name), the 45-year-old manager of the small bank branch on Rue des Capucines, is amazed. Jean-Paul Bailly, President of the French Post Office, is on the line. Giroux has never spoken to her top boss. And then Bailly also has an unusual request: It’s about a top secret matter that he can’t talk about on the phone, he says. An employee of the French secret service would call her in a few minutes and she should follow his instructions exactly and not talk about it to anyone.
Shortly afterwards the phone rings again. The secret agent introduces himself as Paul Ricard. This is what Giroux later tells journalists. He tells her to buy a prepaid cell phone immediately. Giroux gets a new cell phone in a shop around the corner. Only when she calls him back does Ricard reveal what he wants from her.
You, Marion Giroux, made a mistake. One of their customers is an internationally wanted terrorist who is planning an assassination attempt and will soon withdraw a lot of money for it. He should never have had an account, says Ricard. But now she can help him arrest the terrorist.
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