St Denis. He has a “unusual profile”, in the words of the president of the court, Elsa Teurnier. This Friday, June 3, a young 25-year-old soldier was tried in immediate appearance for having transported cannabis resin from Paris to Reunion Island. He was caught on May 1 during a customs check at Roland-Garros airport. Three bulky jars of gel containing “brown soaps” wrapped in plastic film were discovered in his luggage. Total weight of the goods: just over 2 kg.
He was placed in police custody and then the investigators made the link with another customs report last March. The defendant then sent nearly 1 kg of cannabis resin in a package intended for his twelve-year-old half-brother, a resident of Reunion. “I was going to get it back. I regret having involved my relatives in this story”, he defends himself at the bar. The young man would have sent several parcels to the island since February, while saying that he was only a simple intermediary in this affair. He says he retrieved the different postal addresses via the Snapchat application, without developing further.
The soldier justifies his traffic by debts which he would have contracted because of his addiction for gambling and other online bets. “I chose the quickest solution to recover myself”, explains the defendant. He claims to have earned 900 euros per parcel sent, for a total estimated gain of 3,600 euros. Engaged since 2016 in the army, he was precisely in charge of sending packages within the framework of Opex. “I am aware that I give a bad image of the institution”, he breathes.
“We are dealing with a very organized individual,” insists the deputy prosecutor. “He says he was a low-level link but it turns out that he is still a delinquent with some knowledge of the environment and traffic”. She requires four years in prison. The one that does not “does not correspond to the reality of this file with this boy with a smooth and integrated profile, with a clean criminal record”, points out his lawyer. “If he is convicted, he will lose his job.” He will finally receive an 18-month sentence and will have to pay a customs fine of 31,000 euros.
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