Hi everyone, I hope you’re doing okay!

Today, I’m going to tell you about a case that might be even more flabbergasting than the Jean-Claude Bonnal one. Indeed, today’s asshole also chose the criminal life without having much talent in that field, but while Jean-Claude at least tried (and failed) to make a lot money, he did the most for scams so unworthy of time or brainpower that it seems like his scams where more excuses than actual objectives. But I’ll let you make your opinion. Ladies, gentlemen and everybody in between, let me tell you about Nadir Sedrati.

Traumatized from birth

Nadir Sedrati opens his eyes for the first time on March 26th, 1938, in Gavet (around 1,250 inhabitants in 2024, that’s how small it is), in Southeastern France. If you paid attention in history class, you must be aware that Nadir’s birth was poorly timed, given the global geopolitical context at the time, and he realized that pretty soon.

His father dies in September 1941 on the frontlines of World War II, and her mother quickly gets overwhelmed by lone-parenthood. She tries, but ends up leaving her two children in an orphanage in September 1945.

Nadir’s brother, Miloud, doesn’t stay long before getting kicked out for violent behavior. Nadir on the other hand, is described as calm, obedient…and probably severely traumatized, but I get that child psychologists were hard to come by in 1945.

Adding to the sudden changes in his life, the orphanage actually renames him after his baptism, and Nadir becomes Dominique. He actually believes that that’s his name until he stumbles upon his legal documents in 1952. Now 14, he learns about his parents, his brother, and his actual name. That’s probably this discover that pushes him to the shadows of society.

The start of a long criminal life

During his teenage years, Nadir dives face first into criminality. He commits a lot of misdemeanors before…voluntarily signing up for the military. Quite unexpected…

He doesn’t stay long though, because scammers are gonna scam. He avoids prison because he is a minor, but he gets kicked out of the military…until his military service period coincidentally coincides with the Algerian War of Independence.

He is severely traumatized by the fact that he has to fight people that he considers as “brothers”, and ends up committed to a psychiatric hospital in Nice for depression.

In 1958, he gets back into society, and pretends to still be a member of the military to organize a fake lottery, advertised as an initiative to support the French troops. He rapidly gets caught, but puts on a performance that gets him sent to the psychiatric hospital of Sarreguemines instead of prison.

Released in 1959, he gets married and divorced in a flash so quick it’s barely worth mentioning. After that, he goes from arrest to arrest, going from scammer to actor every time. Here’s an example of his “mentally ill” mental performances : in detention for some scam, he soaks himself in honey and says that it’s to protect himself from aliens. Not credible, but entertaining nonetheless.

After what must be the hundredth arrest, he gets deported back to Algeria, since he never obtained the French nationality.

There, he meets an Algerian woman and falls in love, but her parents reject the union, not impressed by this Algerian man named Dominique who is baptized, uncircumcised and doesn’t speak the local language. The couple eventually breaks up, and Nadir finds a way to go back to France.

He starts living with other people’s identities again, ready to do the unthinkable to keep them.

From scams to murder ?

In 1982, Nadir uses a teacher’s identity to commit himself to a healthcare facility for education professionals in La Rochelle. That’s where he meets André Gachy, a retired teacher in 40s who suffers from depression. The two begin a friendship apparently so deep that when Nadir asked André Gachy for a place in his home, André accepted and the two became roommates. André thought he had made a friend, but he had welcomed his worst enemy.

Nadir moves into his home in La Verrière, and everything seems to be going well at first. However, in May 1982, André and Nadir take a vacation and go to Thonon-les-Bains. They go as a duo…but only Nadir comes back. He doesn’t signal his friend’s disappearance to anyone, and keeps living in his home. André doesn’t have a big social circle, so his absence goes unnoticed for a while.

Faced with this silence, Nadir gets cocky and tries to replace André. He files for a renewal of his victim friend’s ID using his own photo. However, he makes several mistakes on the form, triggering the suspicions of the prefecture’s clerk. She compares the photo given by Nadir to the ones on André’s previous IDs, and takes about .01 seconds to determine that the man on the new picture isn’t André. She signals this to the authorities, who finally start realizing that André is gone. They are not the only ones. André’s family also start reporting his disappearance.

A sting is organized. The prefecture clerk calls Nadir and calls him André, saying that she needs to see him in person. Nadir falls for it, because scammers aren’t always smart, but they are always confident. He goes to the prefecture, probably happy as hell, and gets arrested.

Once in the interrogation room, he admits to the identity theft, but affirms that André left voluntarily. I mean, we all know someone who suddenly disappeared, leaving their home, ID, and checkbook to someone they’ve known for less time than it would take to get their passport renewed, I guess.

The investigators are as convinced as we are, and Nadir is indicted for kidnapping, false imprisonment and fraud. Search operations are organized to try to locate André’s body, but they sadly fail.

The investigation continues, and Nadir is examined by Jacques Leyrie, a forensic psychiatrist. The scammer puts on his usual show, but the professional sees it for what it is: miserable acting.

During the same period, the investigators notice that no money has been spent in André’s name since Nadir has been incarcerated, confirming the death presumption.

Our tragically incompetent scammer is brought to court in September 1984, and his defense relies almost entirely on his sad childhood, even though there are a lot of options to deal with trauma before stealing someone’s whole life. Oh well, any argument flies in a courtroom. In the end, he is sentenced to 3 years and a half in prison for the fraud.

For the other counts, he is judged in November 1985. He continues to deny getting rid of André and tells the court that he is a simple scammer and nothing more. I would say incompetent, evil, but certainly not simple, but I digress. André’s body still hasn’t been recovered, and the evidence is flimsy at best, so the court has no choice but to acquit and release Nadir on the spot when life imprisonment was on the table. Maybe this verdict is his most successful scam.

Now free as a bird, he settles in Nancy. He steals the identity of a rich Lorraine brewer’s heir, which leads to a new arrest. He is sentenced to 18 months in prison and is released on September 6th, 1988. He probably goes right back to scamming, but we don’t know that for sure since we don’t have any information about the years following this release.

In 1993, he steals the identity of Joël Royer, who ends up realizing it after a while and pressing charges without anything happening after that. Nadir also steals the identity of Philippe Grossiord without getting caught. So yeah, these thefts work, but don’t get used to it.

A second murder ?

In 1994, Nadir meets Léon Krauss, a 62-year-old retiree who lives in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges in the Bois-Matar neighborhood. Léon spends a lot of time in a care home in Eastern France, and that’s surely where he crosses paths with our heartless scammer.

In October, Léon disappears, but his absence isn’t immediately noticed because he is quite isolated. Nadir writes fake letters in his name, including one that he gives to the manager of the building where Léon lives in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. This letter explains that Léon is renting his appartment to a certain Philippe. Another letter is sent to Léon’s cousin, who is a priest living near, to explain that Léon went away to live a beautiful love story with a woman named Colette. This letter immediately raises the suspicions of Léon’s family, who doesn’t recognize his writing. The police reports start pouring in.

On December 24th, 1994, an overconfident Nadir goes to the Strasbourg police station as Léon to assure the authorities that he is okay and living his best life with Colette. He also wants his family to stop looking for him.

Once he leaves, the Strasbourg police officers contact their Villeneuve-Saint-Georges colleagues, and everybody realizes that something is up. A lot of money is being spent in Léon’s name, but nobody has seen him in a while. His apartment is occupied by a certain Philippe Grossiord, who investigators quickly find. This Philippe, who is actually the real one, is obviously not living in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, so who is in the apartment? They decide to find out directly and go knock on the door. The Léon from Strasbourg, who is also Philippe, but actually Nadir opens and gets arrested. The apartment is searched, and investigators find Léon Krauss, Philippe Grossiord and Joël Royer’s IDs hidden inside.

Nadir admits to usurping these identities, but only to survive (because finding a job is too hard, apparently). He is indicted and incarcerated in the Saint-Mihiel detention center.

The investigators dive into the case and get a bitter taste of déjà-vu when they learn about André Gachy. However, they don’t make the same mistake. They choose to prosecute Nadir for the fraud, but pronounce a mistrial regarding the disappearance of Léon Krauss, keeping the door open for future prosecution.

Nadir is thus sentenced to 5 years in prison for stealing Léon’s identity, and settles in the Saint-Mihiel detention center. He becomes a prison barber, which allows him to hear all sorts of information about other inmates. Don’t forget, being a scammer means also being an A-grade gossiper. But when it comes to Nadir, it’s never only about being a scammer, and everyone will tragically find that out in the worst way.

The bloodbaths

Nadir is released on March 16th, 1999, and moves in the Jean Stauffer shelter in Jarville-la-Malgrange, near Nancy. He starts using Joël Royer’s identity again and puts together a plan that’s as stupid as it is evil. And no, this plan involves absolutely no contact with the job market.

He buys a plant shredder and cyanide (yeah, apparently you could that pretty easily at the time), and uses Philippe Grossiord’s name to rent an apartment in Laxou, where he creates a fake company named Inter Europe Diffusion.

After that, he gets back in contact with Hans Gassen, an old cellmate who has been released in August 1998 after completing his sentence for concealment in a truck theft case. Hans was deported after his release and moved in with a friend, Hans Müller, and his wife Rosemarie in Salzgitter, Germany. He currently works as a truck driver, living what looks like a normal life.

Nadir also contacts another former cellmate, Gérard Steil, who is also living an ordinary life since his release in October 1998. He lives in a shelter and works as a delivery driver, but his contract ends soon, so Nadir offers him help in getting him a job at Inter Europe Diffusion. Gérard accepts and on May 14th, 1999, he takes a train to Nancy, telling his loved ones that he is going to a job interview and will be back on May 17th at the latest. However, when he arrives at Inter Europe Diffusion, Nadir is the one who lets him in. The scammer justifies himself by saying that his boss will be there soon, and offers Gérard a coffee. The coffee contains cyanide, and Gérard collapses soon after drinking it.

Nadir goes ahead with his plan, and dismembers his old cellmate’s body. Once he is done, he goes out, and throws the parts in the local canal before going back to the apartment and cleaning it. After that, he calls the shelter where Gérard lives and tells the staff that he won’t be coming back. That’s not all, he even goes to the shelter, posing as Philippe, and takes Gérard’s belongings!

Think about it. This guy used two identities, rented an apartment, bought cyanide and a plant shredder, created a fake company and organized a fake job interview to kill and steal from a guy that just got out of prison and lives in a shelter. This is so tragically absurd…

After committing one of the most useless murders ever, Nadir resumes his life like nothing happened. On May 20th, he spends the evening in Salzgitter, where Hans Gassen is having a birthday party. The two Hans are very close, and the Müller couple offers their friend a yellow shirt. Their feelings towards Nadir, on the other hand, aren’t as warm. Rosemarie doesn’t trust him at all and refuses to let him sleep in their house. Good call, because he would probably have been capable of killing them all during the night just to pretend that the house is his for two weeks before getting caught like the incompetent little demon he is.

In the morning of May 21st, Hans Gassen tells Hans Müller that he is going to Nancy to see Nadir, who apparently has a business collaboration to propose. He soon arrives in Laxou, where Nadir gives him the same coffee he gave to Gérard Steil. Hans Müller, worried about not getting news from his friend, calls Hans soon after, but he doesn’t answer. He then calls Nadir, who tells him that Hans is tired and resting in another room. Hans Müller tells him to give him a coffee, and this assh… Nadir tells him that that’s already done.

Hans Müller, completely unaware of the evil irony, is reassured and hangs up. Nadir gets back to what is digustingly becoming a routine, and cuts up Hans’ body before going to the canal and throwing the parts in it, and cleaning the apartment.

The next day, Hans Müller has a bad feeling and reports his friend missing. However, both Hans Gassen and Hans Müller have quite a criminal history, so the report isn’t taken seriously by the authorities.

Still under the radar, Nadir turns back into Philippe Grossiord, CEO of Inter Europe Diffusion, and sets his sights on Norbert Ronfort, a cellmate who is still incarcerated at Saint-Mihiel. During his prison days, Nadir had learned that Norbert, nicknamed “Casquette” (it means cap), wanted to reconnect with his family and travel in a motor home, so he sends fake ads full of interesting motor home offers. Norbert falls for it, and gets told that an Inter Europe Diffusion employee will come to get him when he gets released from prison. Some events almost stop Nadir’s plan, but fate isn’t fast enough.

On May 30th, 1999, a fisherman finds a human foot floating in the canal. He immediately signals this to the police, who thinks that the foot got severed in a boating accident. So I’m not an expert, but wouldn’t a guy losing his foot in a popular canal get noticed pretty easily? Maybe not, but that sounds weird to me.

Anyway, the next day it’s a head that washes up. And in the following days, organs, bones and three kneecaps are recovered. The autopsy determines that the bodies were cut in a chirurgical way, definitively putting the accident theory to rest. Getting any clues from the body parts is near impossible for the local forensic experts because they were submerged for too long. They are thus sent to Paris, where the only lab able to work around these issues is located.

On July 7th, 1999, the Parisian experts manage to find the identity of one of the bodies. It’s Hans Gassen, 55. The investigators trace his last known location to the house of Hans Müller, a former armed robber who had actually reported his friend missing. They investigate further, and quick find out that Hans Gassen was getting a lot of calls coming from two places, a shelter in Jarville-la-Malgrange and an apartment in Laxou.

On July 19th, investigators go to the Laxou apartment and discover that a certain Philippe Grossiord rents it for his company, Inter Europe Diffusion. From there, it’s not hard to find out that the company doesn’t really exist and that Philippe Grossiord is actually Nadir Sedrati, because this dumbass used an identity he has already gotten caught using before. However, he is not immediately arrested, which gives him enough time to make another victim.

On literally the same day, Norbert Ronfort gets out of prison and Nadir is waiting for him, justifying the big coincidence by telling him that he is an employee of Inter Europe Diffusion. The two leave for Laxou, probably after the policemen left, and Norbert vanishes.

Two days later, Nadir is arrested, but he’s not the only one. Hans Müller is also arrested at his Salzgitter home, because his statements contain some inconsistencies and he has some Inter Europe Diffusion stamped objects in his house. According to him, he just likes the logo and doesn’t trust Nadir enough to go into any business with him. Still a bit weird…

In the interrogation room, Nadir denies killing Hans Gassen. It wasn’t him, it was Hans Müller who killed him because of a truck theft deal gone wrong, and it happened in Salzgitter, and there were two Dutch men, and two Morrocans, and there was a fight, and Hans Müller stabbed Hans Gassen! If that’s the case, how did the body end up cut up in a canal in France? Nobody knows.

A confrontation between the two suspects is organized in a police station located on the France-Germany border (literally, one side is French and one side is German), and it goes as well as you would expect. Hans Müller keeps his calm, but Nadir is so infuriated by Hans’ denial that he tries to flip the table and has to be restrained. In all of this mess, Hans’ wife Rosemarie notices something: Nadir is wearing the yellow shirt that Hans Gassen had gotten for his birthday. Yes, Nadir took the shirt off his friend’s dead body.

French and German investigators search the Laxou apartment ans discover the plant shredder in the kitchen, and the cyanide hidden in the couch. They also find some dark red stains in some places, even though Nadir was supposed to have cleaned the apartment after each murder (thank god he’s that incompetent). In other rooms, the investigators find the IDs of Gérard Steil, Hans Gassen, Norbert Ronfort, Philippe Grossiord and Joël Royer. Finally, they find quicklime in the basement, which explains why the head found in the canal was way more decomposed than the rest of the body parts recovered.

On July 23rd, 1999, Nadir is indicted for first-degree murder, fraud, and desecration of a corpse. Two counts for each of these charges: one for Hans Gassen, and one for the third kneecap that still hasn’t been identified. Hans Müller is also indicted, but his charges are dropped a few months later.

The investigators try to find a motive, and end up coming to the conclusion that Nadir killed Hans Gassen for his debit card, that he spent the equivalent of $82.

The last act

Nadir feels that it’s going to be very hard to dodge a conviction, and tries to hang himself in his cell during the night of July 25th. He is saved at the last second, so he switches to plan B: insanity. He starts eating his feces, drinking his pee and even randomly sticks his tongue out during reconstitutions. Sadly for him, his acting skills haven’t gotten any better over the years, and the forensic psychiatrists see through his act.

At the same, the third kneecap is identified as belonging to Gérard Steil. The police searches the canal, and other parts of his body are recovered. Regarding the motive for the murder, it seems to be Gérard’s small retirement pension.

In January 2000, the investigators start looking for Norbert Ronfort. His blood and his cap were found at Nadir’s apartment so he is presumed dead, and traces of a specific type of soil were found in a shovel found near them, so the search is narrowed down to the area’s old iron wells. However, the zone is too large and the searches have to be called off. Nadir is indicted for Norbert’s murder anyway on March 22nd.

In March 2001, the Léon Krauss case is reopened, 7 years after the retiree stopped giving any sign of life, but no further evidence is found, and it’s definitively closed in October.

Nadir’s trial begins on April 25th, 2002. He still claims his innocence, but he looks more like a drama queen than a victim of a miscarriage of justice. He smells, and acts arrogant to the point of interrupting the judges. His gesticulations don’t work, and the prosecutions brings out three former cellmates who were contacted by Inter Europe Diffusion in addition to Nadir’s victims. Among them, Dédé tells the court that he had fallen for whatever promises were made, and was supposed to be picked up by an Inter Europe Diffusion employee when he got released on August 4th. Nobody came on that day, because Nadir was in prison.

Faced with this evidence and a defendant that absolutely does not help his own case, Nadir’s lawyer says that any heavy sentence would amount to a death sentence considering Nadir’s age. Yes, his client smells and is quite the nuisance, but he can’t spend the rest of his life in prison just for that, right?

Nadir himself speaks to the juror before deliberation, saying “Think hard before making a mistake. I didn’t do anything. Me, having killed?”

Well, yes.

On May 3rd, 2002, Nadir Sedrati is sentenced to life in prison with a 20-year custodial sentence. He files an appeal, so a second trial takes place a year later, with a new witness affirming that they saw Norbert Ronfort alive in 2000. Then where is he? No idea.

This doubt doesn’t stop the judges from confirming Nadir’s sentence, leading to a cassation complaint from the stubborn scammer/murderer. This complaint is rejected in 2007, leaving no other option for him.

Nadir gained the right to parole in 2021, but he is still incarcerated without much hope of ever being released. However, questions remain. Where are André, Léon and Norbert? Since the bodies found were cut in such a precise manner, how much practice did Nadir actually get? Unless he suddenly decides to tell the truth, we will never know.

Tell me what you think about this case down below, or on r/Murder_Wine_Cheese, Tumblr or Bluesky. I hope you’ll find some money on the ground today, and I’ll see you next time!