Up to seven years in prison were required Wednesday, November 24 against nine people, including dockers, tried in Lille for their participation in a lucrative drug trafficking at the port of Le Havre.
The court will deliver its decision on January 19.
Read also Dockers from the port of Le Havre tried for drug trafficking
In this case with complex ramifications, on which the investigation began in 2017, a dock worker indicted during the investigation was kidnapped and found dead in 2020. The case is still under investigation.
The thinking heads of the traffic will be judged by a special assize court a priori in 2022.
"A surge of cocaine"
Referring to "
a surge of cocaine, a white tsunami
" in Europe, in particular via the port of Dunkirk, the prosecutor Antoine Berthelot estimated Wednesday that those who threw themselves "
in this ocean
" were "
irresponsible, inconsistent, foolish
". He sought the heaviest sentence, seven years with a warrant of committal, against a dock worker, David B., because of "
his functional importance
" in the traffic. The same sentence was proposed for Abdoulaye K., a resident of the popular district adjacent to the port, who did not work as a docker but knew the alleged organizers of the traffic.
Among the dockers tried, four years in prison with a committal warrant were required against Steve D., three years with a committal warrant against Pierre L., and five years suspended against Allan R., union delegate and close to the docker removed in 2020. For the other defendants, the proposed sentences range from one year suspended prison sentence to four years firm for an alleged accomplice with an already heavy record before the facts and then convicted again.
The trafficking of cocaine and cannabis between Latin America, the West Indies and the mainland, generated a turnover of 4.5 million euros.
The money obtained from cocaine, hidden in containers transporting legal goods then left the port thanks to "
complicity at the highest level
", according to the president of the correctional training of the JIRS of Lille, Audrey Bailleul, was partly reinvested in cannabis, then sent to the West Indies, with "
exponential profitability
".
Read also Morbihan: murder against a background of drug trafficking
More than 1.3 tonnes of cocaine and 445 kg of cannabis resin were seized.
According to the survey, intermediaries could be remunerated "
up to 75,000 euros for only authorizing exits
" of narcotics.
The organizers received between 2,500 and 4,000 euros per kilo of cocaine left the port, a sum that allowed them to pay accomplices.
