He is presented as one of the biggest drug traffickers in Europe. The British Robert Dawes, 48, alias the "Drug Lord", was confirmed Friday a 22 year sentence of criminal imprisonment for having imported 1.3 tonnes of cocaine in 2013 via an Air France Caracas-Paris flight.
At first instance, in December 2018, the Briton and four co-defendants were found guilty of the crime of "importation of cocaine into an organized gang", but only Robert Dawes, considered to be the head of the network, had appealed.
The sentence imposed on him was confirmed by the Paris Special Assize Court, made up only of professional judges. The latter pronounced against him a final ban on French territory and a customs fine of 30 million euros, according to this judicial source.
Arrested in his villa in southern Spain
The drugs arrived on September 11, 2013 at Roissy airport, hidden in around thirty suitcases. After this record seizure, the resale value of which was estimated at 50 million euros, the Central Office for the Suppression of the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs (Ocrtis) had set up a vast undercover and surveillance operation.
Nine days later, the police stopped a truck carrying 300 kilos of cocaine and arrested five suspects. The arrest of Robert Dawes, the result of European police and judicial cooperation, only took place two years later, in November 2015, in his villa in the south of Spain.
Monday, at the opening of his appeal, the Briton had reaffirmed that he was totally foreign to this delivery of cocaine, posing as the "manager of a furniture company". According to the prosecution, he claimed responsibility for the drugs seized during a conversation recorded in Spain in 2014.
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During his first trial, he had produced by his defense a document claiming that this wiretapping was illegal, although it was very regular. The presentation of this "forgery" has since led to the opening of judicial information and two of its former lawyers, Mes Joseph Cohen-Sabban and Xavier Nogueras, have been charged.