Drug Ring Busted: Ex-Garage Manager’s Sentence Increased to 12 Years for International Cocaine Trafficking

The former manager of a garage in Erbrée, Ille-et-Vilaine, residing in Vezin-le-Coquet, who participated in an international cocaine and heroin trafficking network between Rennes, Amiens and Paris between September 2021 and May 2022, sees his sentence increased and is sentenced to 12 years in prison. He received two more years on appeal. His accomplice was sentenced to six years in prison. The JIRS (Interregional Specialized Judicial Court) of Rennes had sentenced him to five years in prison. The two men had also been fined €18.7 million by customs. The court had banned them from appearing in Dunkirk "for ten years". Dissatisfied with this verdict, they had appealed. But it was in vain.

It all started with an "anonymous tip" provided to the territorial directorate of the judicial police on June 16, 2021. According to this source, a drug trafficking network involved the former manager of a garage in Erbrée, Ille-et-Vilaine, the "alleged supplier". A phone belonging to his family had in fact made a "suspicious trip" in northern France between May 21 and 23, 2021, reports Actu.fr. In August of the same year, the car of this 41-year-old man and his wife headed to Paris. The vehicle stops only 2h15 at the Porte de Clignancourt to "load an object". After a discussion with a man "known to the authorities for drug importation offenses", its occupants stop for nearly an hour in central Paris and finally for about ten minutes in Boulogne-Billancourt in Hauts-de-Seine, before returning to Rennes at night.

A suspicious trip in the eyes of the investigators. From August 26, 2021, the man was placed under surveillance. The investigators managed to intercept numerous telephone exchanges related to a drug trafficking network, including transportation in France and imports from the Netherlands or Morocco via Spain, through containers, trucks or boats with "the help of complicit officials". They discovered an accomplice working for a port handling company in Loon-Plage in the North, near Dunkirk, also mentioned during the wiretaps.

After the opening on October 15, 2021 of a judicial investigation at the Interregional Specialized Judicial Court (JIRS) of Rennes, the investigations accelerated. The investigators identified one of his close associates, also the manager of an automobile garage in Rennes. On March 7, 2023, the resident of Vezin-le-Coquet and his accomplice were arrested along with other protagonists heard during the wiretaps.