They even relaunched their heroin-addicted customers on Snapchat with promotional operations. Nine alleged members of a major cocaine and heroin network on the Toulouse market were arrested on Wednesday at dawn, announced Samuel Vuelta-Simon, the public prosecutor of Toulouse. Four suspects reside in the Pink City, four others in the Paris region and one last in the Netherlands where the drug shipments came from, via the port of Rotterdam.
This crackdown by the police from the Narcotics and Underground Economy Unit (Uses) comes after several months of investigation. It made it possible to seize six kilos of heroin and 6 kg of cocaine in the caches fitted out in the vehicles used by the traffickers. The market value of these packages is estimated at 570,000 euros, to which are added 126,000 euros in cash found during the various searches.
Hotel rooms and encrypted messaging
According to information from the prosecution, the network had been operating for at least two years in Toulouse. Its members communicated with each other via Signal or Snapchat, changed their fleet of phones frequently, and packaged drugs in hotel rooms. After heroin and cocaine, the network had just made contacts in Spain, which suggests to the investigators that they were also considering getting into cannabis trafficking.
The nine suspects, all already known, were brought today before the investigating judge for their indictment. The prosecution intended to request their placement in pre-trial detention.
