took almost a year of work, starting in the autumn of 1940 for Léon Grossvogel and Hillel Katz to register the business with the Paris Commercial Court on 26 September 1940. Its name was a metonym for S for Societe, IM for Import, EX for Export. It was established to be a large company offering civil and military engineering contract services, general dealership and materials for Nazi German contracts resulting from the occupation. Trepper as Gilbert and several members of staff used the company to obtain special permits that allowed them to cross demarcation lines to observe the progress of construction. The funding used to created the company was monies salvaged by Jules Jaspar from the rain-ware company in Belgium, along with additional funds that were provided by the Soviet intelligence. This resulted in a financial capitalisation for Simex to the tune 300,000 French franc. Although Trepper became one the main directors and general manager of the firm, using the alias Monsieur Jean Gilbert when dealing with any of the employees, he was not a shareholder. The businessman, Léon Grossvogel was the main shareholder and Robert Breyer, a friend of Grossvogel who was the other shareholder. The office personnel of Simex consisted of seven people, of which only three were aware of the real nature of the business. These were Trepper as Gilbert, Polish communist Hillel Katz, Gilbert's main assistant and French communist Suzanne Cointe, Gilbert's private secretary. Katz was Trepper's assistant and had known his since they were both in Palestine. In the day-to-day operations of the business, both Trepper in the role of Monsieur Gilbert and Grossvogel, an industrialist who does business always on the go, are ignored by office staff. The most important of the permanent staff was Suzanne Cointe, who was considered by Trepper to be our man at Simex. However, Trepper, who spent lavishly to establish a front that also included bribery of German officers. Trepper kept accurate note of spending, that had to be accounted for by Soviet intelligence. In December 1941, Jaspar left to run the Simex branch on the Rue Dragon in Marseille, French commercial director Alfred Corbin took over. Corbin, an experienced businessman, had been recruited by Katz. Both Corbin and Jaspar were unaware of the espionage nature of Simex. On 20 November 1941, when Jaspar was arrested, he stated he thought he was working for British intelligence. In February 1942,