Drug traffickers are not always who we think.
As part of a preliminary investigation, entrusted to the Melun-Val de Seine police station after a report from the prison administration services, six guards from the southern Ile-de-France penitentiary center, located in Réau (Seine-et-Marne), were placed in police custody, Tuesday March 12, for having participated in the introduction into custody of prohibited objects or substances, in particular mobile phones, bottles of alcohol and narcotics.
The traffic had been going on at least since last October.
This Thursday, March 14, the Melun public prosecutor's office decided to open a judicial investigation into the heads of criminal associations, drug trafficking, illicit delivery of objects in custody, money laundering and corruption.
These six people will be presented during the day to an investigating judge to be indicted.
“The prosecution requested their placement in pre-trial detention.
The investigations are now continuing under the direction of the investigating judge,” specifies the public prosecutor at the Melun judicial court, Jean-Michel Bourlès.
According to him, “we do not yet know how long this trafficking has been going on”.
“I was caught in the spiral”
This is not the first time that prison guards have been involved in drug trafficking.
At the Meaux-Chauconin penitentiary center, this was the case for one of them who was sentenced by the courts in 2020 to fifteen months in prison without immediate incarceration.
In court, he admitted to having introduced cannabis into the penitentiary center on several occasions, in exchange for 200 euros for each entry.
The goods were given to him at night, in the parking lot of a store, by the relatives of an inmate, a certain “Wawa” who placed orders on WhatsApp messaging.
“I took the package back to the lawyer’s visiting room.
I think it was shit.
Afterwards, it started again.
I was caught in the spiral.
I did it once, he could denounce me.”
In this same establishment, a year ago, a guard was sentenced to a two-year suspended prison sentence for having brought in packages containing, in particular, mobile phones, intended for prisoners.