Sofiane Hambli is a free man.
One of the biggest French drug traffickers was released against all odds on Tuesday afternoon by a liberties and detention judge in Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis) who placed him under judicial control.
This man, originally from Mulhouse, 45 years old, was indicted last Saturday on charges of "attempted importation of narcotics and criminal association in order to commit an offense punishable by 10 years' imprisonment in state of legal recidivism ”.
This 40-year-old is known to be the key figure in the investigation into the controversial practices of the Central Office for the Suppression of Illicit Traffic in Narcotics (OCRTIS) now renamed OFAST (anti-narcotics office).
He was arrested last week in a street in Bordeaux (Gironde), by investigators from the narcotics brigade of the regional directorate of the Paris judicial police as part of a project to import four tonnes of cannabis which could well have cost him his life.
According to our information, he formally disputes his participation in this affair.
The Bobigny prosecutor's office can appeal
"The decision to release him is based on the law," explains his counsel, Me Hugues Vigier, "which was only possible because we went before a real judge.
I had no documents to provide, but I had a simple reasoning which I presented.
The hearing lasted from 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. ”.
The idea of the Parisian tenor is simple: "The examining magistrate believes that there is a beginning of execution because Sofiane Hambli would have received 2.5 million euros to implement a cannabis import project. , he explains.
I say no.
It is not because his interlocutor affirms it that he would have started to implement this project.
For that, it would be necessary to demonstrate that my client has logistics, trucks and transporters in Morocco ”.
Sofiane Hambli is therefore free with the sole obligation of reporting to the Bordeaux police station and responding to court summons.
It is very likely that the Bobigny public prosecutor's office will appeal this decision and that the trafficker will be summoned to the Paris investigative chamber in the coming days.
A cheated accomplice would have wanted revenge
Basically, the forty-something is suspected of having cheated an accomplice as part of a transaction involving the delivery of four tonnes of cannabis resin between Morocco and Seine-Saint-Denis.
According to the elements collected during the investigation, this operation concerned a sum of 2.4 million euros.
But the international trafficker would have pocketed the money without delivering the product to his accomplice in Ile-de-France, who was considering revenge.
On November 10, investigators from the narcotics brigade arrested at their home this famous accomplice, manager of a garage in Sevran (Seine-Saint-Denis), aged 30, and his mistress.
The couple were taken into custody at the PJ headquarters in Paris.
During his hearings, the suspect admitted that he was indeed in a business relationship with Sofiane Hambli but in the context of a hypothetical real estate investment which would have failed.
His partner, unable to reimburse him, allegedly offered him these four tonnes of resin in exchange.
As a reminder, on October 17, 2015, customs officers seized seven tonnes of cannabis in three vans parked on Boulevard Exelmans in Paris (16th century).
The investigation will reveal that Sofiane Hambli was behind this impressive drug importation and further investigations have shown that the trafficker was operating on behalf of the Office.
After thirty months of detention, in this case, the drug lord was released from prison in October 2018, before being reincarcerated a month later when he went to Spain in violation of his judicial control.
He was released during the summer of 2019 against a deposit of 150,000 euros.