This hard drug trafficking case was ultimately “the mountain that gives birth to a mouse”, summarized, on the afternoon of Thursday December 19, 2024 before the Niort criminal court, Me Brigitte Barthélemy, counsel for one of the two defendants.
Especially since the case dates back to the fall of 2016, the time of the denunciation under .
719
This is, in grams, the quantity of cocaine found in the Peugeot driven by the main suspect and in his home in Niort.
Checked thirteen months later without a license at the wheel of an uninsured Peugeot, suspect no. 1, a father now 33 years old, was found in possession of a ball the size of a ” grapefruit “ : cocaine, 700 g in this case. Nineteen other grams were found during the search of his home. In the middle of nineteen pairs of designer shoes, an Italian watch, a category C weapon and various ammunition. The resale of the drug was to allow him to « payer » his debts.
At the home of the second suspect, M’s cliente Brigitte Barthélemy, no drugs. But €7,660 in cash, from the sale of an SUV promises the lawyer, and still a plethora of shoes. About forty pairs. Of the “luxury products” in the eyes of the public prosecutor.
“Everyone has their own addiction”
“My client does not consume narcotics, he answers “To each his own addiction”! “, retorts his council. Seen as “an intermediary” and unemployed at the time, this now 41-year-old from Coulon admits not having been very careful when buying plane tickets for Guyana, his region of origin and at the same time a hub for cocaine trafficking. Especially for two « mules » arrested with ingested drug ova: 678 g for one, a little over 700 g for the other.
Found guilty but « clean » Since then, these two fathers have been sentenced to, respectively, five and eight months in prison: periods which cover their pre-trial detention. What, now, “project oneself towards the future”, said Me Luc-Moussa Bassolé, who had asked “a painless sentence” for his thirty-year-old client.
