Moroccan Man Sentenced for Possessing 350 Stolen Phones at French Border

"I have nothing to do with the theft," assures Lhassan Daoudi, a 48-year-old resident of Dreux, in the Chartres court. Moreover, reports the newspaper l’Echo républicain, "nothing links this resident of Dreux to the burglary of a logistics warehouse, in Nonancourt (Eure), committed between September 1 and 3, 2017".

Indeed, a small immersion in this rather fanciful case has allowed the investigators to understand that the burglars left with pallets loaded with 7,800 mobile phones and nine tablets. They sprayed the warehouse with fire extinguisher powder before fleeing in a stolen truck on site. The truck was found burned a few kilometers away.

With the arrest of Lhassan Daoudi on October 27 by the Moroccan customs, in possession of 350 phones of the same brand in his trunk, the French justice system, which had been seized in the meantime, "hoped to trace back a network of burglars, but nothing linked the Dreux resident to the burglary," reports the same source. When asked by the presiding judge how he obtained the phones, the defendant replies: "There was a van near the bar where I was. The guy was selling the phones for 20 € each. I bought 350 of them. I wanted to resell them in Morocco."

Facing Me Richard Duval, from the Évreux (Eure) bar, who is defending the interests of the company victim of the burglary and who is claiming 514,000 € in damages, i.e. the total amount of the stolen goods, Lhassan Daoudi claims that he succumbed to the temptation to make a little money: "I had a moment of weakness, to have a better life," he says. He admits to having suspected the fraudulent origin of the phones, but minimizes: "The problem is that I’m a bit naive. I became a receiver against my will," he stammered. The court sentenced Lhassan Daoudi to fifteen months in prison for receiving stolen goods and dismissed the civil party’s claims.