Drug Trafficking Network in Nîmes Pissevin District: 15 People Indicted

While 22 people were taken into police custody at the start of the week in connection with a drug trafficking network in the Pissevin district of Nîmes – where little Fayed was killed on the night of August 21 to 22 – 15 were been examined. Five were placed in pre-trial detention.

The Nîmes public prosecutor’s office announced this Friday, November 24 that 15 people, including four minors, had been indicted “at the end of the preliminary investigation which led to the placement of 22 people in police custody” on Monday in connection with a trafficking network narcotics in the Pissevin district of the Gard city.

“These are people against whom the first elements of the investigation made it possible to gather serious and consistent indications of participation at different levels of the network, from watcher to reseller, from organizer to beneficiary of the funds,” indicated Cécile Gensac, the public prosecutor of Nîmes.

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Their indictments relate, according to the people, to “acts of drug trafficking, criminal conspiracy, possession of weapons and/or money laundering”. In detail, five indictees were placed in pre-trial detention, one under electronic bracelet and nine under judicial supervision. Five of them have already been convicted of drug-related charges. Two people in police custody were placed under assisted witness status.

A neighborhood under tension

Since last summer, the Pissevin district has regularly returned to the heart of the news. Little Fayed, 10 years old, lost his life there on August 22, the victim of a settling of scores between traffickers.

The death of the child caused great emotion among the inhabitants of Nîmes and more particularly among those of the city of Pissevin, plagued by drug trafficking.

In response, around a hundred police officers from Republican Security Company 8 (CRS 8), a unit specializing in serious disturbances to public order and urban violence, were deployed the next day in the city. Two days after Fayed’s death, an 18-year-old young man was killed at a deal point in Nîmes.

This Monday, the Nîmes prosecutor clarified that the dragnet was linked to an “independent” investigation from that begun after the two tragedies.

Before the raid, several seizures made it possible to harvest, still in the Pissevin district, numerous quantities of narcotics including 8kg of cannabis herb, 7kg of cannabis resin, 1.3kg of cocaine, 500 ecstasy tablets as well as than several firearms.