Béatrice Brugère is a magistrate and Secretary General of the Unit-Magistrates union.
For weeks, the media have been multiplying the topics on the upsurge in trafficking.
Narcotics, cigarettes, cannabis and even medicines, the products of this trafficking are numerous.
Will Gabriel Attal's plan announced on December 5 against tobacco trafficking and the bill presented on April 3, 2023 by Bruno Le Maire and Gabriel Attal aimed at strengthening customs efficiency be the right response to these new threats? ?
Local residents often find themselves helpless in the face of the resulting increase in insecurity.
Because this traffic, we have known for a long time, generates in its wake a chain of offences, even crimes, ranging from incivility, assault and battery to murder for "territorial control".
The inhabitants of these neighborhoods find themselves trapped in the middle of the violence when they are not themselves collateral victims because these parallel markets obey the logic of the short circuit, directly from the producer to the consumer to reduce transport costs.
The traffic thus takes place under their windows, in the street or even in their stairwell.
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Illegal circuits market products prohibited for sale such as narcotics but also legal products such as drugs or cigarettes but which are counterfeit, which will allow them to be sold on the sly at a very big discount.
It can be seen that the policy of overtaxing tobacco does not seem to reduce consumption but facilitates the organization of its trafficking.
The public safety problem is then coupled with a major public health problem due to adulterated products or products that do not meet any official health standard.
The highly structured organized crime networks that are behind it – and which diversify their trafficking to spread the risks – make extensive use of new technologies, including drones.
Clandestine cigarette factories previously located in Poland or Ukraine began, after the Russian offensive, to settle in Belgium and then in France where the black market represents 30% of the tobacco in circulation.
Beatrice Brugere
What has changed today is the scale of the threat which is growing, expanding and getting closer.
First of all with a production that is relocated.
For example, clandestine cigarette factories previously located in Poland or Ukraine began, after the Russian offensive, to settle in Belgium and then in France where the black market represents 30% of the tobacco in circulation.
Recently, the largest factory of counterfeit cigarettes in France was dismantled near Rouen on January 12 by the gendarmerie.
Nearly 100 tons of illegal tobacco were seized and 9 people were indicted.
The strong increase in sales is measured by the volume of seizures (284 tons of contraband in 2020, 402 tons in 2021 and more than 600 tons, of which more than two thirds of cigarettes in 2022).
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Today we are witnessing an awareness of the government, which is stepping up its pressure on the ground and providing itself with reinforced resources.
If Gérald Darmanin recently proposed to increase the penalties on cannabis consumers after yet another settling of scores in Marseille, it is surprising that the Ministry of Justice is not more associated with these announcements.
It is not only a police response that should be provided, it is also a criminal response to the height of the stakes if we want these announcements not to remain a dead letter.
It is the whole penal chain that must be rethought to make the fight against organized crime effective by increasing the number of specialized magistrates, by consolidating the investigation frameworks and by simplifying the criminal procedure.
Only a large-scale inter-ministerial plan involving the three ministries concerned would make it possible to provide a global and targeted response to the traffic which continues to increase.
Beatrice Brugere
However, this criminal response does not seem to be able to cope with the scale of this trafficking.
It deserves a complete overhaul, including on the scale of penalties, and requires a reliable and consolidated legislative framework.
It is also necessary to develop tax intelligence and customs intelligence to have the earliest detection of tax and customs fraud and organized crime.
To do this, appropriate intelligence techniques are needed as well as significant coordination based on techniques for investigating controlled deliveries, which would make it possible to increase judicial and cyber investigation capacities.
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In a context of crisis of the judicial police but also of under-staffing of the economic and financial services of the gendarmerie which impact the efficiency of justice, only a large-scale interministerial plan associating the three ministries concerned would make it possible to provide a response. comprehensive and targeted to trafficking which continues to increase, even directly threatening democracy as in Belgium and the Netherlands.