Le Figaro Nantes
Boxes filled with 6,000 cartons of cigarettes.
This is what the gendarmes found in a barn located in the town of Rougé (Loire-Atlantique), during an operation carried out Thursday, November 24 to arrest traffickers suspected of several thefts of tobacco and cars in the west of the France.
Their arrest will have mobilized many personnel, including members of the GIGN, as well as the reinforcement of a helicopter because of the attempted escape of one of them.
Since then, the four men have been brought before the prosecution and then indicted for "theft in an organized gang, destruction in an organized gang by dangerous means and participation in a criminal association with a view to committing crimes".
They are currently imprisoned after being presented before a judge of freedoms.
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The quartet comes from the Nantes region and brings together individuals, aged 24 to 52, already known to law enforcement and justice.
The youngest has 29 mentions in his criminal record.
The eldest was previously sentenced twice for armed robbery which earned him 10 and 12 years in prison respectively.
Vehicles burned or thrown into the Loire
The thousands of cartridges discovered were allegedly stolen during a "raid" committed on the night of November 21 to 22 in the town of Saint-Évarzec (Finistère).
Using two vans, stolen beforehand, the traffickers would have emptied the cargo of semi-trailers stored in a logistics site.
The value of the goods is estimated at 660,000 euros.
The gendarmes also suspect them of a previous "raid" committed on the night of November 19 to 20 in six tobacco shops located in the west of Loire-Atlantique.
Thefts mentioned by Le Figaro
and which had caused the excitement of the departmental head of tobacconists.
To commit this offence, the traffickers would have used a car, a BMW stolen the day before in Gestel (Morbihan).
Nearly 900 cartridges had been stolen that night.
None were found during the arrest in Rougé.
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The sign that this team
"acted quickly
", according to Renaud Gaudeul, the public prosecutor of Nantes, and was careful to
"not leave a trace"
.
As proof, the vehicles used during the alleged misdeeds were found either burned or thrown into the Loire.
Investigations are still underway to verify whether the suspected quartet is not involved in other raids or whether it has benefited from possible complicity.
Tobacco, a coveted commodity
"This is a major affair which demonstrates by the means deployed our desire to act against tobacco theft at all levels of the chain, including the high spectrum"
, explained Renaud Gaudeul.
Nearly 200 gendarmes and 50 police officers were mobilized during the investigation.
Among them, in particular, staff from the Central Office for the Fight against Itinerant Delinquency (OLCDI) who collaborated with the Loire-Atlantique gendarmerie group.
In the department, if thefts in commercial establishments remain
"stable"
according to the public prosecutor, this is not the case for tobacconists for which an upsurge in criminal acts has been observed.
“This represents about 20% of theft in shops.
This is a real concern”
, he acknowledges, arguing that a
“real strategy”
has been put in place to deal with it.
The “rapid”
resolution
of this affair would be an illustration of this.
