Since November, the gendarmes had been watching them.
This Friday, six men of Iranian and Iraqi nationalities are presented to the judicial court of Tours (Indre-et-Loire).
They must be tried for criminal conspiracy, aid to illegal stay in an organized gang, and possession of a weapon of war.
They are suspected of being very active smugglers belonging to the so-called “A10 motorway” network.
They were arrested at the beginning of the week by the gendarmes of the departmental road safety squadron (EDSR) of Indre-et-Loire on the rest area of La Fontaine-Colette north of Tours and on that of Usseau. , near Châtellerault (Vienne).
Eleven migrants who were preparing to leave also ended up in the hands of the gendarmes.
They target rest areas without gas stations
Investigations begin in the fall.
The soldiers form an investigation cell and begin their night watchings.
They mark up cars to study their journeys.
They thus note that these smugglers sleep little and that they go back and forth to Calais (Pas-de-Calais) almost every night.
An investigation was launched after several bloody settling of scores between smugglers in October 2019 and February 2020. In one of the cases, 18 rifle cartridges were found.
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"They target rest areas without a service station where there is little traffic at night," says a judicial source.
The preliminary investigation then aims to identify the smugglers who work in the areas of Vienne, Indre-et-Loire and Loir-et-Cher.
The gendarmes discover that they live either in makeshift huts built in the vegetation near the highway or in their cars.
At night, they force trucks that they think are bound for England without the knowledge of the drivers and the opening cars ahead of the convoy to prevent possible control operations.
These are stolen vehicles with false plates.
One of these cars was found this week parked in the Parisian district of Goutte d'Or (18th century).
They fled the Calais region
To escape the excessive police pressure in Pas-de-Calais, the smugglers have moved their activities further south, in Ile-de-France and in the neighboring departments.
“The networks are organized according to the highway numbers,” explains a source close to the investigation.
There is strong competition between these networks which leads to the settling of scores that we have known ”.
The DNA of three of the suspects had also been found on a replica AK47 assault rifle discovered on December 26 by the gendarmes near Romorantin-Lanthenay (Loir-et-Cher) during a check on a truck carrying migrants.
One of the men arrested has already spent two and a half years in prison for similar facts.
Another is the subject of an arrest warrant issued by an investigating judge of the court of Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis) who is investigating his network.
Since the wave of arrests this week, around fifty migrants have been wandering in the Touraine countryside after being abandoned by the smuggler who was to take them in charge on the A28.
“This has no connection with these arrests, advance a source close to the file.
On this highway, it is not the same network ”.
According to our information, the gendarmerie helicopter was engaged on this portion for a different operation which could have frightened the heads of the network.
Abandoned by their smugglers, the migrants were taken care of by residents and elected officials of the town of Rouziers-de-Touraine, near Tours.https: //t.co/VxJHYQQees
- InfoMigrants Français (@InfoMigrants_fr) January 14, 2021
