More than 120 kilos of drugs were seized by the authorities during this investigation which began in 2022. The trial of the eight people is due to continue until Friday, September 6.
Eight people, accused of belonging to a vast drug trafficking network between several European countries and Vietnam, will appear in court in Créteil from Wednesday, September 4.
These six men and two women, aged between 36 and 71, are suspected of being involved to varying degrees in a network established in Île-de-France, particularly in Val-de-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine and Kremlin-Bicêtre, through which ecstasy, a synthetic drug, was mainly trafficked. They are also appearing for criminal association in connection with this trafficking.
Nearly 300,000 ecstasy tablets seized
The case began in November 2022, when the manager of a company specializing in the import-export of goods to Vietnam discovered ecstasy tablets in packages left in Vitry-sur-Seine.
The investigations will allow investigators from the Val-de-Marne departmental judicial police service to identify around ten people within a large network which notably used the services of another company in Kremlin-Bicêtre, where eleven packages containing 72 kilograms of drugs had been seized three weeks earlier.
In total, in this investigation, “more than 120 kilograms of narcotics were seized, mainly ecstasy”, summarized the president at the start of the hearing.
These 300,000 ecstasy tablets represent a market value of around three million euros in turnover.
The “real sponsors” of the trafficking have not been found
According to the procedure, the drugs were imported from the Netherlands or the Czech Republic, supposedly by some of the defendants, before being sent to Vietnam from France.
Three defendants appear in custody, including Van Vuong N., considered by investigators to be one of the main order givers among those arrested in this procedure.
Standing in the dock, his face framed by long grey hair, the latter, already convicted in 1998 for violating drug legislation and in 2019 for aggravated violence, did not react when the presiding judge recalled the facts. Before the investigating judge, he had admitted his participation in the trafficking but assured that he was only a “simple intermediary”.
“There are supposedly sponsors who are above the defendants today, (a woman) and her partner, who probably fled,” the president notes. “Real sponsors” who have not yet been identified. The trial is due to end on Friday.
