At this stage, we are no longer talking about the customs officer’s flair. The driver’s face is surely known to the authorities. Because he may change vehicles, he is regularly caught on the A31, after the Luxembourg border, the car loaded with tobacco. He has already been convicted several times for this type of trafficking. And he has just added one more mention: a conviction that encompasses three trips, during which he transported 138 kg of tobacco in total. It was intercepted near Kanfen in 2017, Richemont in 2020, Guénange in 2021.
The man, in his fifties, of Serbian origin, has just been tried again, as a recidivism. His family smokes a lot. He assures that all his kilos were bought for his consumption, those of his wife and his son. “I sold a little bit,” he finally conceded to the Thionville court. The defendant speaks from prison, in video, translated by an interpreter. He is serving previous sentences related to tobacco trafficking, already, and a traffic offense.
Dry face, salt and pepper beard, yellow and blue jogging jacket, he implores the clemency of the magistrates. He asks them to get him out of there to allow him to take care of his wife, whom he says is disabled. I promise, he finally understood.
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He stays in jail
“It has been controlled by our services for nine years. He cannot ignore the regulations”, blows the customs officer. It also recalls that the defendant is summoned to court for two other similar cases in the coming months.
The Thionville court keeps him in detention until then. He sentences him to 10 months in prison. The driver will also have to pay a fine of 25,000 euros and 50,000 euros in penalties corresponding to the loss of revenue for the State in this umpteenth case.
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