While in prison he met two men who later became his associates, Lionel de Wiet, a cocaine addict who posed as an aristocrat, and Adrien Estébétéguy, known as "the Basque" or "Cold-Hand", a violent thug from Toulouse who served eight sentences for robbery.

In early 1940, Chamberlin was running a Simca dealership as Henri Normand in the outer Parisian quarter of Porte des Lilas and made contacts among the police.

[10] He made himself useful, buying everything from clothes to furniture to food, and came to the attention of Hermann Brandl, Abwehr special agent, and of captain Wilhelm Radecke [de] of the Wehrmacht.

Radecke warned Lafont of this and suggested he find one of the leaders of the anti-Nazi resistance, former Belgian spymaster Otto Lambrecht, sought by the Abwehr, whose capture would earn the favor of the authorities.

Lafont arrested Lambrecht in the zone libre [12] brought him back to Gestapo headquarters in Paris in the trunk of his car, bound hand and foot.

[clarification needed] He joined the police and was given badge number 6474 R.[14] He reigned over a band of a hundred-some felons and enjoyed almost complete immunity.

Near the end of 1940, Hermann Brandl asked Lafont to smuggle an agent into North Africa, so he could install a secret transmitter for communicating with German authorities.

Lafont outdid himself to please his new superiors, notably giving a sumptuous Bentley as a wedding gift to Helmut Knochen, an aide to Heydrich charged with bringing the secret police to France.

In early 1942, he reached an understanding with the Devisenschutzkommando (DSK) (Detachment for currency security) based at 5 rue Pillet-Will, which was tasked with the very lucrative battle against the black market.

It was a matter of introducing himself into high society, gaining the confidence of its members, and concentrating on people with problems who wanted to hide money in Switzerland or obtain travel passes.

The gang also committed many burglaries, calling them police raids; in December 1942 Lafont shared fine china looted from the former American embassy among the most prominent German restaurants of Paris.

Frequent visitors to "the 93" included police prefect Amédée Bussière [fr], journalist Jean Luchaire, actress Yvette Lebon and her daughter, as well as quite a few women known as the Countesses of the Gestapo.

Lafont was on familiar terms with René Bousquet and Pierre Laval,[8] but his relationships with other collaborators like Fernand de Brinon were rather poor.

[22] A few people testified on Lafont's behalf about his service, including resistance fighters for whom he had done favors or whose family members he had saved.

When the verdict condemning them both to death was read, Pierre Bonny had to be held up by the gendarmes, while Lafont seemed very relaxed, with a smile on his lips.

[citation needed] The French Connection was purportedly financed with funds from the Carlingue via Auguste Ricord, Lafont's employee, arrested in September 1972 in the United States.