At a time of an explosive situation in detention, where overcrowding is breaking records, a prisoner via Snapchat and an ex-convict still on an electronic bracelet talk about prison. From now on, drones deliver whatever they want, drugs, food and even ceramic knives. Testimonials.
An appointment is made on Snapchat, a messaging service popular with delinquents and traffickers, a social network where the police can hardly access. Roger, his username, responds from his cell in a Hérault prison where he talks about his daily life in an explosive context: there have never been so many prisoners in France and so few places.
“Practically all the cells have a mattress on the floor. The logic is that the last one to arrive goes on the floor, as the oldest has the bottom bed, there are 3 of us in 9 m2, sometimes it gets hot… But the leaders who place us are doing their job to prevent things from degenerating”he explains.
The law of the strongest and “social discrimination”
Roger nevertheless reports “strong social discrimination depending on belonging and situation. You have no income, you are struggling, you are tired, you will not be treated like someone who is clean and receives canteens.”
Added to this is a hierarchy: “The only one that exists is the strongest, Black, White, Yellow or blue. Not crashing is enough to be safe, afterwards, to be the strongest, like outside, you have to be the meanest. For some, we come here with a CV, we find those who have a pedigree: the traffickers who manage an oven (a deal point Editor's note) or the shooters… The bulk of the prison is filled with people who are in the universe criminal, everyone knows each other.”
So, for some, incarceration has become commonplace. Especially, when you are at the top of the criminal hierarchy.
“Prison? I know it very well, I spent my life there”
“Prison? I know it very well, I spent my life there!”
When we meet him over coffee in Montpellier, this ex-convict, a bit of a braggart, chooses Vladimir as his assumed first name. He knows the prison world better than anyone and the electronic bracelet on his calf that he readily shows betrays his very recent release from detention, at the end of the summer. He passed through the remand centers of Nîmes, Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone (Hérault) and Béziers.
He remembers his first incarceration: “I found myself in Nîmes and when I returned to my neighborhood in Montpellier, I was a hero.”
This drug trafficking kingpin describes a world where reputation and money rule the roost because everything can be bought and sold. He shows his videos and photos of his cell arranged to his liking: posters, the big TV, his packets of cannabis or his plates of fried sausages and cola, all imported illegally.
“Everything has a price”asserts Vladimir. Especially the smartphone: the prison services may have seized 53,000 of them in 2023, “everyone has one”said this witness. It details the prices four times more expensive behind the walls: €400 for an iPhone 8, €1,200 for the iPhone Pro Max 12.
“For hash, €10 outside, it’s €50 here. On large quantities, 10 or 50 g, the prices are not as high and coke is €100 a gram”adds Roger on Snapchat.
How did these banned products become commonplace? Vladimir assures him: the supervisors supply him. He shows a photo where in a packet of biscuits from the commissary, he found phones and cannabis resin.
“With drones being cheaper, the supervisor is useless”
“Today, with drones which are cheaper and which deliver to the cell, the supervisor is useless, it is extremely rare”believes Roger for his part. The drone comes in the evening, it drops the package in an area where the inmate in his cell can fish it out. “He is surrounded by a net of potatoes, we throw a yoyo with a bent fork at the end to get into the mesh and once the thread is hooked, he just has to pull his yoyo to his cell . Like fishing.”
When the “droner” comes near the prison, he is in line with the “fisherman.” The guards, understaffed, have given up and the supposed jammers are non-existent or sometimes of limited effectiveness.
Lots of ceramic knives delivered by drone
“We bring in simple things, like a whisk to make cakes, sweets, fresh raw meat, chopped or merguez, clippers to cut hair, mundane things… Unfortunately, there are also ceramics “alerts Roger the inmate, evoking these knives with a white blade which do not ring at the gates.
Vladimir describes how the drone became a small business. On Snapchat, again, we find announcements like “Droneurs 34-30-13”, individuals who know neither the detainees nor what is in the packages but touch “€350 for 300 g of load or €850 for 2 kg” to deliver the goods.
The two witnesses confirm that the phones are used by dealers to continue their business, deliveries, management of the “oven”, while some use them to run scams. “on Amazon delivery”laughs the Montpellier man under bracelet.
Roger reminds him: “The telephone has the bad side of the coin like sponsored murder. But it is essential, it buys social peace. No telephone, believe me that the problems of violence would be multiplied by ten… We call the family, it calms us down, we surf the web or watch football matches.”
“Time bombs”
Roger is eager to end his sentence and promises that he won't be caught again. “Prison, most people take it as wasted time. A guy who has been five years or more comes out completely out of step, adapted to prison life so, for him, it will no longer be an obstacle to “return”, the long sentences create time bombs.”
Vladimir also assures that he is done with “his years of thugocracy.” Even if it's difficult.
“When you get on the train and it’s not the right one, the further it goes, the harder it is to get back”he says, fatalistic.
From his cell, accused of having ordered and followed on his phone the torture of a young drug dealer
If recent assassinations in Marseille between mafia gangs were triggered from prison, Occitanie also has its share of cases where detention no longer prevents anything.
According to our information, Hérault resident Laurent Morcillo, with an impressive criminal record, was indicted in mid-November for complicity in kidnapping by an organized gang with an act of torture or barbarity.
This 40-year-old individual, nicknamed “White Wolf”, is suspected of having ordered punishment against a “smut dealer”, responsible for selling narcotics at a drug dealer in Montpellier, because he allegedly stole money.
According to the judicial police investigation, he would have, from his cell, in November 2022, sent his hooded lieutenants, including two “tarters”, specialized in reprisals, to sequester the nicknamed “Parigot” and a friend of his.
Stripped and forced to fight
They were stripped naked and forced to fight to determine who stole: the whole thing was filmed so that “White Wolf” could watch everything from his cell, give his orders, and threaten those who refused to do so with the same fate. obey.
The rest was also captured by telephones: “Parigot” was taken to a field, beaten, a rag put in his mouth, and the attackers broke the fingers of his right hand with paving stones… “White Wolf” denies the facts, as he had denied being the boss of a vast narcotics network.
“It’s impossible to manage the network from prison”had launched Laurent Morcillo, last March, before the Montpellier judicial court which had sentenced him to eight years in prison for the management of two points of deal, which he denied. Tried on appeal in October, his sentence was revised upwards: twelve years in prison.
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