Accused of running a "production farm" in Morocco, the "boss" is acquitted on the benefit of the doubt

The case, tried this week, concerned a traffic of "Moroccan suitcases" of 30 kg of cannabis resin, from the Rif and intended to supply the Ain and Rhône regions in 2021 and 2022. The file was largely based on the testimony of a gendarmes’ "source", who described the defendant as running a "production farm" in Morocco. The wiretaps had also identified an organizer nicknamed "Blondin", who was running the network with an "iron fist" from Morocco, even sending his "soldiers" to recover 34 kg of stolen drugs, reports Le Progrès.

The defendant, arrested in Morocco in August 2023 and extradited to France in early 2024, denied everything. "I am not the big trafficker settled in Morocco as they say. [...] And I am not the one they call Blondin," he defended himself at the bar. He claimed to have settled in Morocco in 2017 "out of love for the country" and for its "quality of life".

Acquittal "on the benefit of the doubt"

While the prosecutor believed that "Blondin, that’s him", the defense lawyer, Ms. Florence Vincent, denounced a "pure scandal". She said she was "stunned by the inanity of the file", believing that the "criminal proof" was lacking.

An argument that convinced the court. The judges acquitted the thirty-year-old "on the benefit of the doubt", considering that "no positive act could be attributed to him" in view of the investigation. The man had already been convicted in a similar but distinct case to five years in prison, three of them suspended, on appeal.