They are suspected of having organised a major drug trafficking operation between several European countries and Vietnam: eight defendants accused of belonging to this vast network will appear in court in Créteil from Wednesday.
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 transported.
They also appear for criminal association in connection with this trafficking.
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.
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 people appear in custody, including Van Vuong N., a Vietnamese national, 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 declared during his interrogation that he had arrived in France in 1984 under the status of political refugee.
Already convicted in 1998 for violating drug legislation and in 2019 for aggravated violence, he maintained his statements made during the investigation and admitted his participation in trafficking, but assures that he is only a “simple intermediary”.
An established figure in the Vietnamese community of the 13th arrondissement of Paris according to his lawyer, Eric Najsztat, the Vietnamese denies the accusations of another defendant exhumed by the president during the hearing, according to which he belongs to “the Vietnamese mafia” and is nicknamed “Uncle”. “He killed people”, according to this same defendant.
The person concerned laughs when the interpreter translates these words for him. “No, it’s not about the mafia, I’m quite well-known in the 13th as a fighter,” but “just to defend myself,” he assures.
During their interrogations, most of the defendants admitted to some of the facts, but minimized their role in the trafficking.
Some have already appeared in court in the past, like Marc C., who has been convicted several times, notably for aggravated armed robbery.
“There are supposedly sponsors who are above the defendants today, (a woman) and her partner, who probably fled,” the president explained, however. A couple that we find, in the background, throughout the procedure. “Real sponsors” that everyone blames, but who have not been identified at this stage and are therefore not in the dock.
The trial is due to end on Friday.
mlf/cal/rhl
