The sponsor of a vast drug network falls after the interception of a convoy near Toulouse
By Paul Halbedel
Published on
This is a case that has occupied the police for many months now. It has just resulted in the arrest, at his home, of the sponsor of a vast network of drug traffickers prevailing in the region of Toulouse. Several of its members had already fallen before him.
At the origin of the arrest of this man and five of his accomplices: the interception in the town ofEscalquensWednesday, December 7, 2022, of a road convoy transporting 11 kg of cannabis and 5 kg of herbal cannabis.
An investigation opened in March 2022
The case originated in March 2022 with the interception by customs, near Toulouse, of a vehicle from the Pyrenees-Atlantiques. This carries 64 kg of cannabis. The driver manages to flee but the Organized Crime Service of the Toulouse prosecutor’s office opens an investigation which it entrusts to the anti-narcotics office of the Toulouse judicial police.
The following month, the investigators succeeded in identifying several people involved in this file. One of them was even arrested while she was driving a vehicle clearly escorting a convoy transporting narcotics.
The sponsor identified last November
In June 2022, two other participants in this traffic were arrested in turn. The first is arrested while conveying 45 kg of herbal cannabis in a vehicle. The second is in possession of 25 kg of cannabis resin and of 400 grams of cocaine stored in a box.
Then the investigation accelerated last month. Two other individuals were arrested in turn. Before the person suspected of being at the head of this traffic – a man born in 1991domiciled in Toulouse and already convicted on multiple occasions for drug trafficking – is identified by the investigators.
Surveillance established that he himself, or third parties to whom he entrusted vehicles, had traveled dozens of times to 64, 66 and Spain, since November 7, in his own vehicle or vehicles location. Sometimes the trips took place towards 91, the probable location of the network’s cocaine supply.
New net after the interception of a convoy in Escalquens
It is these observations that will make it possible to intercept a new road convoy circulating in the town of Escalquens on Wednesday 7 December. A seizure that triggers a large operation resulting in thearrest of the sponsor but also of five other people involved in this case. All had been identified during the investigation.
The search carried out in an apartment used for trafficking revealed 1.2 kg of cocaine, 6.5 kg of cannabis resin and two approved automatic pistols (caliber 11.43 mm and 7.65 mm).
Dismantled traffic in a few figures
In its communication released this Tuesday, December 13, the Toulouse prosecutor’s office sums up the dismantled drug trade in a few figures at the end of this long-term investigation:
Between December 2021 and December 2022, the investigators counted around sixty suspicious trips illustrated by the three interceptions of vehicles transporting narcotics, for a total quantity of 156 kg of cannabis resin and 1.6 kg of cocaine: the retail resale of these quantities represent a value of €1,456,000.
Ten people in pre-trial detention
The six people arrested last week were presented to the investigating judge on Saturday 10 December. indictments, they were remanded in custody by the judge of freedoms and detention. In total, during these nine months of investigation, it is therefore now 11 people aged 18 to 31 who were arrested.
All were referred and indicted for their participation in acts qualified as importing, acquiring, transporting, offering or selling narcotics and participating in a criminal association. Ten of them have been placed in pre-trial detention and the eleventh remains free but subject to judicial supervision.
The investigation is continuing under the direction of the investigating judge with a view toidentifying the other authors, co-authors or accomplices of the traffic and all the beneficiaries.
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