British family pays €3,000 after dodging French tolls

Members of a British family paid about 3,000 euros after being stopped in eastern France over unpaid motorway tolls, police said Tuesday.

The operators of the A36 autoroute alerted police on Saturday to suspected fraud at a toll booth near Belfort, close to the Swiss border. At the next toll booth, police said, a person got out of one of three cars, lifted the barrier to let the vehicles pass and then got back in.

The occupants, British nationals from the same family, were stopped by gendarmes. France 3 Franche-Comte television reported that they had been carrying out the same offence for several months.

Police said the unpaid tolls amounted to about 3,000 euros, or $3,450, and were paid the same day.