The investigation into the murder of a Brazilian woman in a Paris hotel has uncovered extensive drug trafficking between Brazil and France: two women, having admitted to having worked as mules, were indicted and imprisoned on Thursday January 18 in the evening in Paris, AFP learned from a judicial source.
In police custody initially as part of the investigation for intentional homicide, they explained to the police that they had transported drugs to France as mules, like the killed victim, according to sources close to the case.
The main suspect for this murder, who also belongs to the network, is on the run, according to these same sources.
The case began on Saturday with the discovery of the lifeless body of a Brazilian woman in her forties in a hotel in the northwest of Paris.
The victim, a client
“for a week”
of the establishment, presented in particular
“a deep wound in the carotid artery”
, according to a police source.
On Sunday morning, two other Brazilian women were arrested as they were preparing to board a plane at Roissy airport, say two sources close to the case.
“I owe a debt to someone who threatened me.
I apologize"
Thursday evening, during two successive hearings before a judge of freedoms and detention, these women justified, collapsed, their activity which they carried out, according to their stories, for the first time.
“I have three children, a mother sick with cancer.
In December, the rain destroyed my house and I have debts
,” said the 27-year-old.
“I ask forgiveness from your Excellency and from the entire French community.”
“This lady does not deserve to sleep in prison tonight.
His criminal record is clean
,” argued his lawyer, Me Maria Snitsar.
“I owe a debt to someone who threatened me.
I apologize
,” the 37-year-old woman also said.
His lawyer, Me Simon Olivennes, argued that the case should have been separated into a murder aspect and another narcotics aspect, in order to avoid a
“colossal waste of time for the judicial institution and for Madame.”
But for the prosecutor, the case pursues
“a double objective”
:
“to find the author of the crime and all the co-perpetrators of drug trafficking”
.
“There are other identified people to be arrested
,” she assured.
The prosecutor also underlined
“a fairly significant risk of reprisals” for these women in Brazil, involved in a network with “very dangerous people”
, which helps to motivate their pre-trial detention.
The judge imprisoned them
“while the investigations progress”
.