In a 90-page report made public this Tuesday, the Court of Auditors pointed out the non-application of certain key measures of the plan to combat drug trafficking, five years after its launch.
Good, but not enough. Certain priorities of the 2019-2023 anti-narcotics plan have not been implemented, with “not long-lasting effects” and without “sustainable results”, estimated the Court of Auditors in a report made public Tuesday evening.
“Five years after its launch, the national anti-narcotics plan presents mixed results,” explains this 90-page report.
At the time, the “stup plan” contained six objectives: improving knowledge of trafficking; intensification and rationalization of field activities; increasing the fight against the underground economy and the money laundering circuits of drug trafficking; strengthening the seizure of criminal assets; the development of international cooperation and the strengthening of service capacities.
The dismantling of deal points made difficult
Concretely, this effort was “interrupted”, judged the magistrates of the Court of Auditors. Particularly on the dismantling of deal points. The harassment of these places of sale has allowed, in two years, a decline of 25% in the total number, but today remains “stabilized around 3,000 points in total”.
In addition, “shelling” is difficult to maintain over time for several reasons: maintaining deal points in areas that are difficult to access by the security forces, reconstitution of new points in areas close to the harassed points or even reduction of hours of public roads dedicated to the fight against delinquency for the benefit of contact with the population, notes the report.
Ditto for the fight against money laundering, “insufficiently developed”. The annual amount of money laundering from drug trafficking is estimated by the Ministry of Finance at 3.5 billion euros, the report recalls. However, the Anti-Narcotics Office (Ofast) only has seven investigators, out of the 200 staff at central level, trained in this issue which nevertheless constitutes “one of the most effective levers to fight against trafficking”.
For the Court of Auditors, the new plan, “which has not yet been finalized”, “will require tighter management” in particular in the face of a change in sales methods. And for good reason, 37% of regular transactions are carried out by delivery, via orders via social networks or the internet. To cope with these developments, the Court of Auditors further believes, “the number of cyber investigators must be increased”.
