«When it comes to the fight against drug trafficking, we will not give up! » The Dax public prosecutor can enjoy it. A week after the government announced a plan to fight this deadly drug trade, Benoît Fontaine found something to please the Ministry of Justice.
Presented as part of an immediate appearance procedure before the judges of the Dax judicial court, this Monday, November 18, 2024, four drug traffickers were sentenced to prison terms and imprisoned as soon as the deliberations were rendered. The duration of this incarceration will be four years for Jérôme Olivier, already known to the courts and convicted in 2017 for his participation in drug trafficking in the Landes.
Also a repeat offender, Pierre Libat also receives four years in prison. Mixed sentences were handed down to Wilfried Mignon, three years in prison and six months suspended subject to twenty-four months probation, and Théo Bougreau, with two years in prison and six months. two-year probationary suspension. Accomplice in the criminal activities of her companion, a 35-year-old woman was sentenced to eighteen months suspended sentence.
“Two traffics”
“Very dense file” for Aurore Chauprade, the judge responsible for leading the debates recalled that this immediate appearance had been made possible because the defendants “recognized most of the facts at the end of the investigations”. Ended by the organization and arrest of the accused at their homes in Saint-Geours-de-Maremne, Saint-Vincent-de-Tyrosse and Bénesse-Maremne, Tuesday, November 12, the investigation by the gendarmes of the police brigade Searches for Dax had begun at the beginning of August.
“With this operation, the gendarmes interrupted two trafficking operations,” underlined one of the defendants’ lawyers, Mr.e Marc-Olivier Chort, in his pleading. The debates made it possible to establish that some of the defendants had never seen each other before and even had separate sources of supply. Without these suppliers being able to be identified, the quantities of products sold in a few months in the south of Landes concern, for the four defendants, a minimum of 9 kilos of cocaine, around forty kilos of weed and around ten kilos of cannabis resin.
The quantities of products sold in a few months in the south of Landes concern, for the four defendants, a minimum of 9 kilos of cocaine, around forty kilos of weed and around ten kilos of cannabis resin.
“There are hundreds of thousands of doses of drugs that were sold. These are not freelancers but local players who benefited from large-scale, supplied, organized traffic, with customers who knew where to go,” underlined Benoît Fontaine.
Lucrative?
In his requisitions, the prosecutor focused on the lucrative nature of the products sold, for example the 39,000 euros deposited in the two accounts of one of the dealers. “They are no longer afraid of putting money in cash, in small amounts, into their accounts. Selling drugs is like a job for them. They made a professional choice by launching into drug trafficking. »
Beyond the ten years in prison incurred, the activity would however have other disadvantages, as Pierre Libat admitted during the hearing. If his vehicle was damaged, with “a broken rear windshield”, it was because of the drugs he was selling. Jérôme Olivier also confided in the judges, while respecting the usual law of silence in the industry. “We always have someone above us!” » In debt “since (his) first business” with a supplier, people would have forced him to resume, at the beginning of the year, trafficking in the canton of Marensin: “I was sent a photo of my son when he left school, I was beaten up, I was made to close my business so that I could be available 24 hours a day for trafficking. »
The latter also admitted to having found in Wilfried Mignon the right person for him to sell cocaine from his Tyrolean accommodation. Aged 36, he presents a very different profile from the other defendants, according to his counsel. For Me Élise Rocher, “he’s the only one who didn’t make a financial profit from this traffic, he fell into it through addiction.” Calculations made, she pleaded that with a daily consumption of 5 grams of cocaine, acquired for 40 euros, “the resale allowed her to cover her drug addiction”.
In order for the court to impose an obligation of care for her client, the lawyer highlighted one of the challenges of the coming months in any drug-related trial: “You can show the effectiveness and speed of a jurisdiction to judge any trafficker. Or you will want to take into account the principle of personalization of the sentence. »
