“Anyway, bro, Inch’Allah, I’m going to stop. I’m doing this one and maybe one after that, but it’s over! » Sofiane, 29, resident of Argenteuil (Val-d’Oise), didn’t think he was saying that well. He was arrested a few hours after this message, addressed to one of his accomplices, by customs while he was transporting 505.27 kg of cannabis resin in a BMW.
Eighteen months after this crazy nocturnal expedition from Andalusia to Île-de-France, he and four other participants in this go-fast – a sixth is the subject of an arrest warrant – found themselves Wednesday before the Versailles criminal court.
They are between 25 and 29 years old, some have known each other since high school, others not. There is the team from the south and that from Île-de-France. All six, including a young woman, were sentenced for their participation in this go-fast, worth more than 1.5 million euros according to customs, to sentences ranging from 2 to more than 4 years detention. Investigators accuse some of them of participating in several convoys between September 6 and this famous November 9, 2022.
The transporter arrested near the Saint-Arnoult toll
That evening, in the middle of the night, a BMW, driven by Sofiane, arrives at the Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines tollbooth. Customs decide to check the vehicle. The driver forces the toll barrier. The officials just had time to deploy a harrow, three tires were punctured, but the motorist continued driving before hitting a vehicle near Boinville-le-Gaillard.
The man got out of his car and fled on foot. He was arrested a few moments later. Inside the big car, 12 Moroccan suitcases, shopping bags containing a total of… half a ton of cannabis resin.
The research section of the Versailles gendarmerie, responsible for the investigation, managed, thanks to the vehicle registration plates, the DNA found in the BMW, geolocation and telephony to identify the participants in this go-fast .
Their mission: “protect the convoy and hit the police cars if necessary”
Besides Sofiane, the resin transporter, who is sentenced to 53 months in prison, 24 of which are suspended for two years, there is Sami, 28 years old, and Hamza, 27 years old, the Île-de-France team (Stains and Argenteuil). Aboard a Seat Leon, rental car, they are responsible for “protecting the convoy and if necessary hitting police vehicles”. They are sentenced for the first to 3 years in prison and for the second to three years, two of which are suspended on probation.
There is also Anaïs, 25 years old, from Saleilles (Pyrénées-Orientales) who ushers the convoy, but whose Volkswagen breaks down and Mathieu, 25 years old, from the same town who will come to her aid, after having “secured” the passage. of the vehicle at the Spanish border. Finally Djilalli, 27 years old, father of 4 children, also involved, in whose home we will find a money counter “dusty and in a garage” according to its owner. He was sentenced to 4 years, his childhood friend Mathieu to 3 years, one of which was suspended, and the young woman to 42 months of imprisonment, 20 of which were suspended.
All admit to having participated in this convoy, but all refuse to say more about their involvement, their precise role and remain evasive about previous go-fasts. Communications under pseudonyms on encrypted Signal messaging are not theirs, they assure. “It’s a 2.0 investigation, purely technical,” denounces a defense lawyer, assuring that his client is not the so-called Fred, a little too talkative in his messages. Another contests the cover-up organized to identify the buyer of the BMW in the name of a phantom company.
Paid between 50 and 1,000 euros, sometimes via Vinted
Sofiane explains that he participated because he owed money. “I was not aware of the quantity I was transporting,” he assures. Mathieu, unemployed, says he was paid 50 euros for crossing the border. “It’s not expensive to pay,” assures the president. “It’s just half an hour,” he replies. Anaïs, who worked in ready-to-wear clothing, indicates that she was paid between “300 and 700 euros, received by Vinted”. Hamza “between 800 and 1,000 euros found in the glove box of the vehicle”. None say they know the sponsor.
“For derisory sums, we participate in this social disaster that is drug trafficking. They all explain that they are small hands with a sponsor who has never been identified,” underlines the prosecutor, who had requested heavier sentences for some.
