The case caused a stir. Due to its scale, the means deployed (the Raid and the BRI) and above all the “targets” arrested, including Mélanie Boulanger (PS), the mayor of Canteleu (Seine-Maritime), and one of her deputies, in this Norman town of 15,000 inhabitants. This vast anti-drug operation carried out on October 8 was piloted from Seine-Saint-Denis. The nineteen people arrested and placed in police custody were under rogatory commission from an investigating judge of the Bobigny court.
Among them, eleven were indicted after their presentation before the investigating magistrate. “Eight are domiciled in Normandy and three in the Paris region”, specifies this Wednesday the public prosecutor of Bobigny, Eric Mathais, in a press release.
Depending on their role and involvement in this case, the suspects are prosecuted for “criminal association”, “drug trafficking”, “laundering of sums derived from drug trafficking” and “possession of category A and B weapons”, details the prosecutor. Some have multiple offenses. One of them is also in a state of recidivism.
Investigations led to the seizure of 15 kilos of heroin, 25 kilos of cutting products, firearms and 375,000 euros
Following their indictment, which lasted three days, from Sunday to Tuesday, only one was released and placed under judicial supervision. The others were remanded in custody. Four of them are still awaiting their referral to the judge of freedoms and detention, which must intervene between this Wednesday and Friday.
The eight other people arrested on Friday in this dragnet had already been released on Sunday, without any prosecution, at this stage of the case. Including Mélanie Boulanger and her deputy.
“It will be up to the examining magistrate to assess the follow-up to be given concerning these people with regard to the elements collected within the framework of the judicial investigation”, underlines Eric Mathais. The mayor of Canteleu had shared her emotion and her incomprehension during a press conference on Monday noon, hammering that she had “no connection” with the alleged traffickers and that, according to her, her custody “does not was not justified.
The investigations also made it possible to seize “fifteen kilos of heroin, twenty-five kilos of cutting products, firearms and the sum of 375,000 euros” during searches carried out on Friday, indicated the prosecutor of Bobigny in a previous press release.
This investigation has been open for two years for “drug trafficking” and “criminal association”. It is carried out by investigators from the departmental service of the judicial police of Seine-Saint-Denis. Their colleagues from the departmental security services of the Seine-Maritime public security department were also seized.
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