Three suspects, arrested after the interception of a convoy near Montluçon (Allier), were indicted for smuggling “trafficked”
firearms
from Turkey to the Paris suburbs, announced Tuesday 30 January the Bordeaux public prosecutor's office.
Two of these people were arrested on the A71 motorway by the GIGN on January 22 during a convoy heading back to Paris,
“one on board an “opener” vehicle, the second driver of the “carrier” vehicle, carrying several handguns
,” said the prosecution.
The third person was arrested in the Paris region.
Led by the research sections of the gendarmerie of Toulouse and Versailles, under the aegis of the Specialized Interregional Jurisdiction (JIRS) of Bordeaux, the investigations carried out between Allier and Val-d'Oise made it possible to seize around fifty firearms, ammunition and several thousand euros.
Some 120 gendarmes and police officers were mobilized for this operation, including the Observation and Surveillance Groups (GOS) of Île-de-France and Lyon, the aerial section of the Lyon gendarmerie, the departmental gendarmerie groups of the 'Allier and Val d'Oise, as well as the Sarcelles police station.
“Underground sector”
The three suspects, two men and a woman aged 21 to 34, of Turkish and French nationality, were indicted for acquisition, possession and transfer of weapons and ammunition, participation in a criminal association with a view to the preparation crimes, and organized gang money laundering.
They were placed in pre-trial detention.
The weapons seized presented
“characteristics of modified weapons”
, which suggests that they could come from an
“underground network of modification and transport of trafficked weapons”
, specified Frédérique Porterie, public prosecutor in Bordeaux , in a press release.
They were
“intended to supply criminal networks in the Parisian suburbs”
, according to the prosecution.
The arrests follow a first operation during which three other suspects were arrested by the GIGN during an arms transaction in March 2023 in Tarbes, in the Hautes-Pyrénées.
Forty-four weapons were then seized.