The man is well known in Marseille and drug trafficking circles. Karim Boughanemi, 51, was taken from his cell in Grasse prison, reports the Parisian. He is suspected of having organized a drug importation network from Guyana, with two of his nephews.
According to our colleagues, the extraction took place this Tuesday, November 26 by police officers from the Marseille Anti-Narcotics Office. His nephews and several “mules” were also arrested. In total, thirteen people were arrested and taken into custody in this case.
His nephews would have recruited “mules”
The police suspect Karim Boughanemi of having organized this trafficking, with his two nephews, responsible for the logistics. They would have taken care of the recruitment of “mules” to transport the drugs via swallowed drug ova, from Guyana.
“They landed at Roissy or Marseille-Marignane airport with their bellies full before unloading, out of sight, their merchandise as dangerous as it was lucrative,” our colleagues explain.
Arriving in France, the “mules” were paid and the drugs were then resold in a city in Marseille.
Sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Var Assize Court
Karim Boughanemi is not unknown to the justice system, far from it. With around ten convictions under his belt, the man has been incarcerated for 18 years. In 2009, he was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment by the Var Assize Court for the murder of a drug trafficker in Marseille.
Three years later, Karim Boughanemi was called to testify during the appeal trial of Ange-Toussaint Federici, retried for a triple assassination committed in Marseille in 2006 against a backdrop of rivalries for supremacy of the slot machine market.
Initially prosecuted for false testimony, Karim Boughanemi benefited from a dismissal of the caseno document could establish the possibly false nature of his testimony, recalled the attorney general.
