The German truck driver was preparing to deliver more than 11 tonnes of contraband tobacco but customs intercepted him in Bruyères-sur-Oise (Val-d'Oise) on January 31.
The cargo never reached Sarcelles or Villiers-le-Bel, the alleged locations of the delivery, and the driver caught in the act found himself before the Pontoise criminal court.
Aged 62, father of five children, working in the transport sector since 1989, the man escaped prison.
He was sentenced at the end of the hearing on Friday to a one-year suspended prison sentence.
It also avoids the fine of 2.65 million euros requested by customs, corresponding to the value of the goods on resale.
He will nevertheless have to pay a customs fine of 100,000 euros, more in line with his role as executioner in this affair.
This man of Turkish nationality living in the Essen region, Germany, was able to return to his home and will be able to recover his vehicle and trailer which were not confiscated by the court, to allow him to continue working.
Agents from the Aulnay-sous-Bois customs brigade hit the mark last Wednesday when they opened the trailer of the refrigerated truck, after benefiting from an anonymous tip.
They discovered, wrapped in plastic, no less than 17 pallets of contraband tobacco in the trailer, with a total weight of 11.64 tonnes.
A quantity of tobacco for which no tax has been paid.
“I wanted to be of service”
During the hearing, this boss of a small transport company, which employs two employees, assured that he did not know the nature of his load.
However, he had helped people load his truck in Belgium, but without seeing the contents of the pallets.
He was not very convincing by first naming a certain Ahmet, whom he did not know, as his sponsor, before talking about Kamal, both of whom were from the Turkish community in Germany, like him.
He finally agreed to transport the goods for 2000 euros, payable on arrival, according to his story.
“You never check what you’re carrying?”
If this friend offers to pay 2,000 euros at the end, it is a curious way to proceed, if it is legal merchandise,” noted the president of the court.
“I wanted to be of service,” the defendant simply explained at the hearing, not very talkative and who would not say more about the organization of transport.
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Customs also carefully studied his phone to deduce the existence of two previous trips made in August and September, notably in Seine-et-Marne.
The driver in question confirmed these trips made on behalf of the same person, while denying, again, knowing what he was transporting.
“There is no element in the procedure indicating that it was contraband tobacco,” noted the president.
A question that also arises for the last journey: “Did he know?”
It must be demonstrated,” insisted his lawyer, Me Ariane Lachenaud, who pleaded for acquittal with the benefit of the doubt, as well as the restitution “of his work tools”.
In the end he was only condemned for the trip to Bruyères-sur-Oise.
Online sales also in the sights of customs
The last seizure of this importance communicated by customs dates back to February 22, 2022, when a semi-trailer was checked in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis), allowing the discovery of 17 tonnes of hookah tobacco.
The seizure in Val-d'Oise illustrates a booming phenomenon.
503 tonnes of tobacco were seized in 2023, “an exceptional year in terms of results against tobacco smuggling”, Thomas Cazenave, then Minister Delegate in charge of public accounts, underlined on December 14.
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To combat this trafficking, the Ministry of the Economy and Finance has launched a 2023-2025 action plan.
It involves in particular the creation of anti-tobacco trafficking groups and the establishment of a cyber-customs network “to track online sales”.
In 2023, according to the ministry, “the dismantling of networks and the analysis of clusters of clues made it possible to hinder 72 criminal organizations”.