A thirty-year-old is summoned in September before the criminal court of Tours for having sold for 2.5 million euros of Spanish phytosanitary products banned in France, including glyphosate, between 2020 and 2023, we learned Tuesday, December 18 from concordant sources.
The man, born in 1990, will be tried on September 3, 2024, in particular for the sale of plant protection products in an organized gang without approval and deception on a product causing a danger to the health of humans and animals, the Tours prosecutor's office said.
'A structured network'
The suspect, who has no criminal record, faces seven years in prison and a fine of up to ten times the turnover of sales, added the public prosecutor of Tours Catherine Sorita-Minard.
The joint operation led by gendarmes from the Central Office for the Fight against Environmental and Public Health Violations (OCLAESP), the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB) and the National Veterinary and Phytosanitary Investigation Brigade (BNEVP) has allowed the dismantling of "a structured network", both in Spain and France, the national gendarmerie said in a statement.
62,000 litres of herbicides
According to the gendarmerie, the investigation showed that the network was reselling plant protection products labelled in Spanish on the internet to the general public. In total, 62,000 litres of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides, including 23,000 glyphosate-based products, were sold "to several thousand French buyers between January 2020 and July 2023".
These products, "banned from marketing to the general public since January 1, 2019 and the entry into force of the Labbé law", were sold through large online sales platforms, "throughout the national territory". Five people were also arrested in Spain on 13 December. More than 4000,26 cans of plant protection products as well as various solid products, for a total of nearly <> tons, were seized, the gendarmerie said.