Sentences ranging from fifteen months suspended prison to fourteen years in prison were requested, Monday, October 12, before the Marseille Criminal Court, against 32 defendants for their role in cocaine importation channels from North America. South.
Read also: Saint-Ouen: life in a city trapped in drug trafficking
Sixteen warrants of committal or arrest were also requested by prosecutor Magali Raffaele, as well as fines of up to 70,000 euros.
Among the 32 defendants, four men and a woman, Guyanese and Surinamese, had on several occasions transported the drug "
in corpore
".
The penalties demanded against these mules - "
a term which dehumanizes these people
", noted Magali Raffaele - range from 30 months in prison, including 10 months suspended and 5 years including 30 months suspended.
Two young cousins from Saint-Laurent du Maroni (Guyana) told the court about their recruitment in Suriname, the hours spent swallowing up to 150 "
eggs
" filled with 8 grams of a 70% pure cocaine under the watchful eye of providers in an apartment in Paramaribo as well as the shamanic rites intended to protect them from the evil eye during their Cayenne-Orly flight.
"
The value of a kilo of cocaine goes from 3,500 to 35,000 euros
"
"
These sectors would be nothing without these mules considered as simple vectors of transport
", observed the prosecutor stressing the lethal nature of the goods.
According to the magistrate, this case is “
the illustration of a traffic which has taken on importance over the past five years.
From point A, Surinam, to point B, metropolitan France, the value of a kilo of cocaine goes from 3,500 to 35,000 euros
”.
Read also: Fines for drug use:
Le Figaro
delivers a first national report
French justice has only managed to identify one supplier in Suriname, a certain "
Rasta
" of 32 years, against whom 10 years in prison and an arrest warrant were requested.
The maximum penalty of 10 years has also been called for against importers from Saint Laurent du Maroni.
According to the prosecutor, a third of the defendants belong to "
the Volpi team
", named after three brothers who had spent their youth in Guyana.
With "
two passions, cocaine and fishing
", a Varois Malik Volpi against whom was requested the heaviest sentence, 14 years in prison and 40,000 euros fine because of the recidivism is, according to the prosecution, the "
real leader of drug trafficking
”.
He traded on several kilos.
Wholesaler, he supplied several resale networks in the south of France.
"
He is an independent, unrelated to the criminal clans we know in the Bouches-du-Rhône and the Var,
" observed Magali Raffaele.
The judgment is announced Thursday at the end of the defense pleadings.
