Dismantling of khat trafficking: nine people indicted, including three imprisoned

Nine people have been indicted in Paris, including three imprisoned, after the dismantling this week of trafficking in khat, a shrub considered a narcotic, between Israel, France and the Netherlands, we learned on Saturday from judicial sources.

The nine suspects, suspected of being mules and traffickers, were arrested in the act on Tuesday by the gendarmerie.

At the end of their police custody, they were indicted on Friday as part of an open judicial investigation for importing, exporting narcotics in an organized gang;

acquisition, possession, offer or sale of narcotics and participation in a criminal association, detailed the judicial source.

Three of them were imprisoned, the other six placed under judicial supervision, she said.

During the arrests, “

”, announced the gendarmerie.

But this traffic would relate to a total of more than eight tons of goods transported in eight months during fifty trips "

", had underlined the gendarmerie.

The market value of this traffic is estimated at 1.2 million euros.

Read alsoSignificant international drug trafficking dismantled by the gendarmerie

The investigation began last summer on the basis of the exploitation of information by the French Air Transport Research Section, which uncovered a "

" supply of khat by air from Israel to eastern communities. -African women from Paris and the Netherlands, according to the gendarmerie.

According to the investigations of the gendarmes, the organizers of this traffic recruited mules in Israel to transport the narcotics in their luggage.

Once in France, the mules went to hotels located near Roissy airport, near Paris, where "the

“explained the gendarmerie.

The operation carried out on Tuesday in the hotel area of ​​Roissy mobilized 50 soldiers from the air transport gendarmerie, the judicial pole of the national gendarmerie and the gendarmerie region of Île-de-France.