Tom de Peyret for M Le magazine du Monde
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InvestigationIn recent months, the small world of dockers in Seine-Maritime has been shaken by ultraviolent acts. At stake: the windfall linked to drug trafficking from South America.
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When she arrived, around 7 am, at the back of the Jules-Collet school in Montivilliers (Seine-Maritime), on June 12, the lady on duty was seized with fear. At her feet lay the body of a terribly swollen man, barely hidden behind the hedge that borders the parking lot. The body, bloodied, smelled of gasoline. As soon as they arrived on site, investigators from the Le Havre branch of the Rouen regional judicial police service made the connection: a few hours earlier, the gendarmes informed them of the kidnapping of a resident of Mélamare, in Seine-Maritime. According to his partner, Allan Affagard, 40, was kidnapped by three hooded men as he returned home around 2 a.m.
Father of four children, the bearded colossus is a pillar of the RCPH, the rugby team of the port of Le Havre, where he has worked as a docker since 1999 with the handling company CNMP. For Le Havre police officers, this is no stranger: Allan Affagard, influential CGT union delegate, was indicted in July 2018 for “criminal association in connection with drug trafficking rampant in the port area” following the seizure, in July 2017, of a ton of cocaine. The docker, who has always disputed the facts, had been blamed, as well as another CGT delegate from the port, for his alleged role in the unloading of a cargo, monitored for weeks by various intelligence services, customs and police officers.
Allan Affagard had been left free under judicial supervision. However, for several months, the docker was worried. To the point of filing a complaint in March 2020 after receiving increasingly threatening text messages: “He was harassed via an encrypted messaging, says an investigator: “Help us get the product out of the port”, “You owe us a service”, “If you don’t help us, can others help us?”, “We know where you live”… It is obvious that ‘he was revived by drug traffickers who sought an accomplice on the port. “ Did they want to make Allan Affagard an example? If, according to a press release from the specialized interregional jurisdiction (JIRS) of Lille, which is leading the investigation, the docker was not tortured, contrary to what rumors claim, he was indeed beaten to the point of dying muffled.
A world apart in the heart of the city
On June 18, a judicial investigation was opened for “Arrest, kidnapping, sequestration followed by death in an organized gang”. The investigation is being carried out jointly by the Le Havre branch of the Rouen regional judicial police service and the research section of the Rouen gendarmerie. The death of the docker, which took place a week before the second round of municipal elections, aroused great emotion in the city where former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe was running for a second term.
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