Saint-Etienne: prison closed for 22 drug traffickers

The criminal court of Saint-Etienne sentenced Thursday to prison 22 people involved in a large drug trafficking dismantled last year.

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In its judgment, which had been put under advisement, the court found guilty of participation in this trafficking 22 of the 24 defendants, sentencing them to prison terms of up to five years, representing "a total of 38 years in prison" , indicated the parquet of Saint-Etienne. The sentences of two of them, of foreign nationality, are accompanied by a definitive ban on national territory, says the same source.

At the end of the hearings, which took place between 25 and 29 May, two companions of mainly cannabis and cocaine traffickers were released. The police investigation had started in late 2017 after the arrest of a man who sold narcotics in a night establishment in Saint-Etienne. The dismantling of the network in two popular neighborhoods of the city, carried out mainly in February and June 2019, had led to the referral of 24 people to the criminal court.

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