This is one of the biggest drug trafficking cases from Spain in recent years for the Bordeaux Interregional Specialized Jurisdiction. Brought back to France, the drugs were distributed between the South-West and the Lyon region. For the sake of efficiency, this case has been split into two parts. The first has been under trial since 1is July before the Bordeaux Criminal Court; the second, “which concerns something other than cannabis” is “still under investigation”, specifies the president, Jean-Luc Ybres. Before the magistrate and his assessors, 14 men and one woman from Gironde, Charente and the Rhône, appear.
“All-purpose” couple
Summer 2020, July 10: An anonymous call arrives at the Narcotics Squad of the Gironde departmental security. It puts the police on the trail of a Skoda. On board, large quantities of cannabis are said to have been brought back from Spain to the suburbs of Bordeaux. The registration leads to a “passepartout” couple. They live in Taillan-Médoc. The man is a retired maintenance worker and a coach driver to supplement his meager pension. The woman is a small employee.
They have itchy feet and a taste for the south of the Iberian Peninsula. Between July 2019 and July 2020, they made 60 trips there. The investigators hide, witness their returns and each time the same thing: Monsieur takes the Skoda to a parking lot in Haillan, hides the keys on a wheel, then the car is recovered by another man.
The wiretaps show that the pensioner is getting agitated. Convinced that his son-in-law wants to “snitch on them”, he plans to “put a bullet in his head”. A wave of arrests is triggered on September 8, 2020. A cache is discovered in the Skoda. “Based on its capacity and the number of trips, an estimate has been made of 15,750 tons of imported narcotics, with a resale value of 110 million euros”, the president states.
Half a million in notes
In court, the ruddy-faced retiree stammers: “I had credits, I couldn’t manage. I asked a colleague, a bus driver. He put me in touch with “the boss” whose name I don’t know.” His partner accuses him: “he insisted that I accompany him. That they be a couple on vacation.” During the investigation, they admitted to having earned more than 180,000 euros with their convoys.
These first mules lead to bigger fish. Lucky for the police, one of them sends instructions to Taillanais on an encrypted application, while he is in custody. The investigators respond and a meeting is set in a parking lot in Bruges. Jackpot: two men are arrested and, in their car, nearly half a million euros in cash is found.
The police did not give up, traced the connections and discovered that the Skoda had been replaced by heavy goods vehicles. On 28 May 2021, they intercepted a delivery of 551 kilos of cannabis hidden in a Moroccan truck in Bruges and arrested several suspects. Other arrests and seizures followed, until 2023.
Not very talkative during the investigation, the fifteen defendants were no more talkative on the first day of their trial. It lasts until Friday.
