Drug Ring Busted: Six Sentenced in Lyon for Morocco-France Cannabis Trafficking

"This case has uncovered an entire import and distribution structure, with transport professionals who have used their vehicles to transport the drugs," summarized in her indictment the prosecutor Anne-Sophie Huet before the Lyon criminal court.

The defendants, including drivers, suppliers/couriers, a suspect and a chief organizer in direct contact with the suppliers on site, were followed and wiretapped in an investigation opened since 2018 by the elements of the drug squad of the DIPJ of Lyon following the discovery on June 23, 2018, of 436 kilos of cannabis in blocks of about twenty packages in a bus on the Lançon-de-Provence rest area. The merchandise was valued at nearly 900,000 euros hidden under three hatches in the central aisle of the bus and under a false floor of the luggage compartment.

At the hearing, the Prosecutor cited Mohamed B., alias "Moussa", in detention since August 2018, as the organizer of the transports in direct contact with the suppliers in Morocco in contact with the wholesalers in Lyon. He had been arrested with 135 kilos of cannabis in a vehicle registered in Portugal.

The man denies his role and presents himself as an agricultural worker. A statement in contradiction with the wiretapping and surveillance reports of the police which reveal on the contrary that the man used his personal mobile phone to manage the progress of the drivers and "continued from his cell after his extradition", detailed Anne-Sophie Huet.

Even better, continued the Prosecutor, "the acquisition of two apartments and four cars in Spain, as well as a four-apartment building in Morocco" demonstrate on the contrary his high level of involvement.

According to the transcripts of wiretaps read during the two-day trial, the suspect boasted on the phone of being able to corrupt a policeman and a magistrate in Morocco to facilitate the transports, while complaining about the "new scanners" set up at the port of Tangier to detect drugs in vehicles, reports BFM Tv.

At the end of the trial which lasted two days, Moussa, the organizer and core of the network, was sentenced to 8 years in prison, 80,000 euros in fines with confiscation of his property and a permanent ban from French territory.

As for the two Moroccan drivers, they received three years in prison, with a ten-year ban from French territory. And the court sentenced another suspect considered the wholesaler based in Vaulx-en-Velin to seven years in prison and ordered his arrest.

In the same case, two supplier/couriers were sentenced to three years in prison and 8,000 euros in fines. This pipeline transits the drugs through Toulouse.