Two new people were indicted on Thursday, November 7, in a corruption case at Meaux prison (Seine-et-Marne), involving two prison officers, including a clerk, franceinfo learned on Friday from consistent sources.
Requested by franceinfo, the Paris public prosecutor's office specifies that these two men, aged around thirty, are being prosecuted for “complicity in fraud in judgment in an organized gang for repeat offenses”, “active corruption on a person entrusted with a mission of public service” and “criminal association with a view to committing crimes punishable by ten years' imprisonment”. One of them was placed in pre-trial detention, the other was placed under judicial supervision. They are presented as possible intermediaries.
In December 2023, a network involving two agents from Meaux prison was dismantled after drug traffickers were handed over or attempted to be released. One of the biggest drug traffickers in France was suspected of having bought a clerk from this Seine-et-Marne prison to allow his release from detention.
The case began with gentle approaches to Meaux prison, where this clerk in her thirties worked. According to the official's version, a man came to knock on her one day. He wears a balaclava and says he knows his family. The clerk then does what she is asked. She deliberately forgets to send to the court a request for the release of a drug kingpin detained in the prison. With this procedural flaw, justice orders the release of the trafficker. But he will be caught at the last minute in the context of another case.
The young woman also modifies, on the internal software, the “criminal record” of another inmate, reducing the sentence to which he was sentenced from several years to a few months. The clerk talks about threats she received and swears she hasn't been paid. But justice has serious doubts.
Like the trafficker, she is one of six people indicted last year for “active and passive corruption by and on a person entrusted with a public service mission”, “organized gang fraud in judgment”, “embezzlement of the purpose of files” and “criminal association with a view to committing crimes punishable by ten years' imprisonment”. The four other people indicted last year are another woman who worked at the Meaux penitentiary center as well as her sister, and two inmates.
The trafficker, Firat C., 37, is presented as one of the main importers of cocaine in France. According to a police source, his transport and judicial extractions are carried out under very high security. He was incarcerated and placed in solitary confinement. Still from a police source, Firat C. still appears in the “Topnat”, the list of around fifty priority targets of the Anti-Narcotics Office (Ofast).
This case illustrates “the risk of corruption within our own institutions”commented the Paris prosecutor last year.
