Toulouse: hookah tobacco trafficking arrested, 190 kg seized
A simple traffic check seized more than 190 kg of hookah tobacco and put an end to a traffic that had lasted for almost a year. The trafficker was imprisoned on Friday and will be tried on Monday before the Toulouse Criminal Court.
Because he confused the streets of the Saint-Cyprien district, in Toulouse, with a circuit, a motorist was noticed by the police officers of the anti-crime brigade, Wednesday in Toulouse. This driver was intercepted, checked and his vehicle was searched. The police discovered 30 kg of hookah tobacco in the trunk. The driver, a 30-year-old man, struggled to explain the origin of this tobacco.
The suspect was returned to the Tournefeuille police station to be placed in police custody and the prosecution decided to seize the customs, and more particularly the service of judicial investigations of finances, which brings together investigators from customs and the tax administration.
These specialists continued the investigations, carrying out a search of the home of the suspect already known to justice for various offences. At his home, the investigators discovered 160 kg of hookah tobacco but also packaging that would correspond to an additional 63 kg. More than €12,000 in cash was seized and two Rolex watches whose value is estimated at more than €13,000. The prosecution, like the investigators, suspect that these watches were acquired with money from the traffic.
In jail awaiting the hearing
The research carried out in particular on the suspect’s telephones made it possible to discover an organized traffic via social networks. “From 40 to 50 customers per week for around 20 kg of tobacco”, specifies the parquet floor of Toulouse in a press release. And this rather laudable trade had been going on, according to investigators’ investigations, since the summer of 2021.
At the end of his police custody, the now unemployed suspect who receives the RSA, was presented to the Toulouse prosecutor’s office on Friday. He should be tried on Monday before the Toulouse criminal court in the context of immediate comparisons, in particular for “tobacco smuggling” and “laundering”. On the requisitions of the prosecution, the judge of freedoms and detention placed this man without a warrant of committal. He will spend the weekend awaiting the hearing.