Miscellaneous – Justice | A trafficker on the run, sentenced as part of a settling of accounts in Marseille, arrested near Montpellier
A drug trafficker, on the run after being sentenced to 14 years in prison for his participation in a settling of accounts in Marseille, was arrested Thursday near Montpellier, AFP informed a police source.
This 37-year-old man was a “important member of Marseille narcobanditism”explained Guillaume Lacassin, head of the National Fugitive Research Brigade (BNRF) in charge of the investigation that led to the arrest.
He had been sentenced on appeal by the Assize Court of Aix-en-Provence in January 2022 for “conspiracy to commit a crime“, in this case a homicide in the context of a settling of accounts during the summer of 2016 in Marseille, detailed Commissioner Lacassin.
He was also the subject of a second arrest warrant for a three-year prison sentence for drug trafficking, the commissioner said. “Careful“, it was”provided with a false identity and used his telephone very little“, explained the commissioner. “He had gone green a few kilometers from where he committed his misdeeds and resided in tourist residences, hotels, in the Montpellier region“, he added.
The investigators finally found him thanks to technical telephone surveys, in a tourist residence where he had been for several weeks.
He was arrested in the parking lot of a commercial area, with the support of police officers from the fugitives search group of the Montpellier judicial police. He was then taken into custody to serve his sentence.