REPORT. Toulouse: in the footsteps of hunters of drug traffickers
In Toulouse, 24 police officers, divided into three units, fight against drug trafficking. Since confinement, they have had to adapt to a whole new practice: home delivery. Investigations are more difficult.
10 p.m., in the Sesquières district of Toulouse. A car is speeding. The driver turns without putting on the turn signal and finds himself facing the police.,Officials from the specialized field brigade check him and quickly smell the smell of cannabis. This 30-year-old carries 70g of resin and 70g of weed. The drug book at the home of its customers. Questioned by the investigators of the stupefying and underground economic unit (USES) of the right bank, the cannabis seller confirms everything. This young holder of a license in letters works as a delivery driver in a Toulouse company. He earns €1,200 per month. “But that’s not enough, I wanted to make ends meet. So I went to Bellefontaine to buy 100g of weed and 100g of resin. It cost me €800 but I had to recover €1,000 after the sales,” he says.
The year 2018, when on a Toulouse deal point, on an account of up to 70 customers per day for a turnover of around €300,000 per week, seems far away.
This first-time offender embodies the constant evolution of the drug market. Even if they brought in a lot of money, traditional points of sale are partly replaced by order taking systems on social networks. “With confinement, traditional drug trafficking has gradually disappeared to give way to “Ubershit”. Selling at the bottom of the towers is too risky because our teams harass them a lot in the field. They adapted. And thanks to the deliveries, the dealers are much more discreet, it means that it complicates the task for us, ”observes the boss of the” narcotics “of the departmental security of Haute-Garonne.
A painstaking job
To go back to the managers of these “ghost” structures, the work is no longer quite the same. “We rely on information and we work a lot on the phones since they use the Snapchat or Telegram applications. to do their business. As soon as we have reliable information, we try to decipher the network and catch the most influential people”, explains the head of USES, which deals with the districts and municipalities located on the left bank of the Garonne.
This Thursday, he is preparing an operation to find a nanny. “Even if they deliver, the dealers keep the goods. We think we have spotted one of the apartments used, ”says this forty-year-old.
His unit, based in Tournefeuille, which has only 5 police officers, largely fulfills its mission: “In 2021, we got our hands on 4 kg of heroin, 20 kg of cocaine, 320 kg of weed, 369 kg of weed and €1,000,000”, he explains proudly.
Across the department as a whole, in 2021, €2,100,000 in connection with drug trafficking was seized by officials.
“They’re always a bit ahead but we’re not giving up. We can say that our work annoys them. And it also allows the inhabitants to live again. The most striking example is the Izards sector. The point of sale has completely disappeared. The residents are more serene, ”says one of the investigators.
New profiles of traffickers
Who says new practice says new profile. In the space of a few months, the face of drug traffickers has changed.
“They use girls a lot, preferably young ones, to drive the vehicles loaded with drugs. They easily pass more incognito, ”observes an investigator from the stupefying unit and the underground economy (USES) on the right bank.
The last example dates back to February 17. During an operation organized on the roads in the Saint-Agne sector, the police officers of the specialized field brigade in the south of Toulouse check a vehicle which has a false license plate. At the wheel of this car, a 23-year-old woman. Beneath her innocent looks, she carries several doses of narcotics that she has to deliver to customers’ homes. At her home, the investigators also recovered 840 g of cannabis, 20 g of cocaine and more than €2,000 in cash. “Life is more difficult. We are looking for solutions to get out of it. Drugs make it possible to get rich quickly, ”says one of the sellers in police custody. Hiring often takes place through social networks. On Snapchat, an ephemeral messaging service, many job offers are posted with good pay. But also big legal risks…